The purpose of this thesis to review how the Catholic Church has carried out interreligious dialogue from the past of severance society to modern era of vast interrelationship in a social, cultural and religious sense, and subsequently suggest directi...
The purpose of this thesis to review how the Catholic Church has carried out interreligious dialogue from the past of severance society to modern era of vast interrelationship in a social, cultural and religious sense, and subsequently suggest directions to respond to and participate in interreligious dialogue strongly required with the changes to perception of the Catholic Church with respect to this interreligious dialogue.
In such a context, I explored to review detailed activities and status of this interreligious dialogue and changes to this dialogue
which goes together with the social changes and the study consists of the following.
Chapter I was described to remind the fact that we have various kinds of problems in this globalized world and an active association needs to be established by consensus and dialogue among the religions of the world which took an important role in human history to resolve such problems. For further steps, it was emphasized that individual and exclusive religions trampling others based on the past territorial conquest cannot remain and the true interreligious dialogue would be the start of meeting the needs of the times.
Especially, as a beginning of the main text, Chapter II was described to review what kind of relationship lies in the interreligious dialogue. It dealt with general understanding of interreligious dialougue with the anthropological respect. However, as dialogue cannot be defined in a single meaning, the definition was made based on the most common sense and various perspectives consisting of interreligious dialogue which is linked with the core objective of the study were reviewed to examine the background and definition of the dialogue.
Chapter III was described to further explore how the Catholic Church tried to contact other religions in the history. In fact, on this part, it was described how the Catholic Church admitted its faults in the history and made them the basis of the interreligious dialogue. Efforts of the Church to realize practical and positive dialogue were also described around period of the Vatican Council II which became the start for the Church to realize the needs to carry out interreligious dialogue and begin interreligious dialogue in its true meaning.
Chapter IV was described to show relations between the Catholic Church and other religions in detail to realize true interreligious dialogue which is the core of the study. The needs and advantages of the interreligious dialogue and potential problems which can be raised in a practical sense were carefully reviewed based on 4 approaches of ‘the dialogue of life’, ‘the dialogue of action’, ‘the dialogue of religious experience’ and ‘the dialogue of theological’ suggested by Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Contents dealt with this study were explored with the social problems in the real world as the religion cannot exist separate from the real world in its nature.
In addition, it was also examined how the theologians have reviewed the interreligious dialogue from the past until today and what is to be accepted or cautious from their suggestions of concepts such as ‘exclusivism’, ‘inclusivism’ and ‘pluralism’. Among those concepts, ‘pluralism’ was examined in more detail as it became the major issue by those who are in favor of syncretism and relativism with respect to interreligious dialogue. For further review on this issue, it was suggested what kind of identity is required to establish harmony in the interreligious dialogue by the Church by reviewing「Dominus Iesus」declared by the Pope, Benedictus ⅩⅥ when he was headed in Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei.
As the true interreligious dialogue is carried out by people and is the inevitable needs of our times, we need to keep in mind that the primary objective shall be fulfillment of our nature which was created by the love of God. In addition, the Catholic Church shall keep in mind the wordings of Roman 8,19-26 which contains the role and hope of the Holy Spirit to realize the true meaning of interreligious dialogue as the true direction of the interreligious dialogue can be achieved by following the guide of the Holy Spirit and joining the activities of the Holy Spirit for the peace and harmony of the mankind.