Dialogue in an Age of Dispute

The Hayes-Towey Memorial Lecture

Notre Dame Annexe, Trafalgar Square, London,

July 2026

Introduction

When kindly asked by the editors of the Pastoral Review to contribute a talk for the annual appreciation for the lives and ministries of Professors Michael Hayes and Anthony Towey (both former editors of the journal) I had no hesitation that it had to be about dialogue between the faiths. Why so? Well, we live at a perilous time. In one respect this is new for our generation but in another, as a student of the interaction of the three faiths in medieval Spain, this is nothing new for the history of humanity. The story of this period, as well as being one of ‘convivencia’ and co-operation between the faiths, was also one of deadly warfare, competition and what we would nowadays call the ‘clash of civilisations’. Towards the end of the covid pandemic in 2022 the Carmelites at the priory of Toledo hosted an innovative conference where Christians, Jews and Muslims met together to discuss our mystical roots – especially on the sacred ground of Iberia  - initiated by St Mary’s University Centre for Initiatives in Sprituality and Reconciliation. It was not always easy-going but the results were a deepening engagement between our ‘sister faiths’ through shared exploration of our mystical roots. What is showed me was that it is possible to use the theology of dialogue I will present in this article to make a clear difference in how we interact with the other inhabitants of our fragile world today. At this colloquium Dr Michael Kirwan SJ, referring to this period, reminded us that ‘with respect to the alleged reality of convivencia on the Iberian peninsula before the early modern period - for which Toledo stands as the geographical marker - this project requires careful scholarship. The historical reality needs to be purged from anachronism and liberal wishful thinking.’[1] Which will be my intention here as I relate how that colloquium came about and the consequences of it for pursuing dialogue with ‘the other’ in today’s troubled world. Essentially then in this short article I shall remind us of the Catholic moral and ethical duty to dialogue - a light in the darkness of our times - and suggest ways we may go about it.

New Things in Our Time

As is well known the Catholic approach to other faiths has undergone something of a revolution in recent times – most particularly in the latter half of the twentieth century. ‘Dialogue’, or at least understanding of the ‘other’ – particularly the Jewish or Muslim other – did not come high on the list of the Catholic church’s priorities before this time. However, the Second Vatican Council from 1962 – 65 changed this forever. Last year we celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the last document promulgated by the council in 1965 which is known from its first lines as Nostra Aetate (in English: ‘In Our Time’)[2] which memorably pronounced in its opening paragraphs:

In our time, when day by day humanity is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions. In her task of promoting unity and love among people, indeed among nations, she considers above all in this declaration what they have in common and what draws them to fellowship. (NA: 1)

Now, these glorious opening sentences are often criticised today as being perhaps a bit too naïve, a bit too, well, ‘nineteen sixties’, in their wide statements of universal brotherhood and sisterhood. Yet, as in these last years we have stared into the abyss of the alternatives they seem to have taken on a new burnish – this is not an option anymore, it goes to the core of our faith as successive popes from Pope St Paul VI to our current Pope Leo have declared.

          How, then, do we engage in that dialogue? Well, fortunately as Pope St Paul VI, that remarkable man, presided over the final sessions of the council he also drafted his own first Encyclical, Ecclesium Suam,[3] which in many ways stands as a counterweight to Nostra Aetate and should be read in conjunction with it. The Pope matches the soaring rhetoric of the Conciliar document with a pragmatic and practiced description of how we should approach other religions ‘in our times’, not least through the (for Catholics) somewhat radical and revolutionary approach of ‘dialogue’ – this is the practical or pastoral aspect of the theology I mentioned at the outset.

This radical document thus gives the aims for such a dialogue. The first is to achieve greater self-knowledge not only for all of those engaged in dialogue but indeed to help the Church learn in greater depth about the nature of the mystery of revelation (ES: 9). Hiding behind this goal is the necessary separation the document makes between the full revelation as given by Christ to the Church (‘the holy and spotless Bride’) and our current understanding or interpretation of this revelation which will necessarily be fostered by engagement with the perspectives of non-Christian colleagues. For the Church to be true to itself and its mission it must then, according to Ecclesiam Suam, engage in this dialogue with those beyond the boundaries of the Church (ES 18). From this theological perspective the rest of the encyclical’s delineation of the nature of this dialogue inevitably follows. In this respect it provided some good ground rules for our own dialogue in Toledo, in particular that the Dialogue should be:

·       Non-coercive: ‘No physical pressure was brought on anyone to accept the dialogue of salvation; far from it. It was an appeal of love.’ (ES: 75)

·       Universal: ‘The dialogue of salvation was made accessible to all. It applied to everyone without distinction. Hence our dialogue too should be as universal as we can make it.’ (ES: 76)

·       Its aim is not conversion: ‘If, in our desire to respect a man's freedom and dignity, his conversion to the true faith is not the immediate object of our dialogue with him, we nevertheless try to help him and to dispose him for a fuller sharing of ideas and convictions.’ (ES: 79)

·       Its aim is to produce clarity in all participants: ‘Clarity before all else; the dialogue demands that what is said should be intelligible. We can think of it as a kind of thought transfusion. It is an invitation to the exercise and development of the highest spiritual and mental powers a man possesses.’ (ES: 81)

·       Expressed through ordinary language: ‘All of us who feel the spur of the apostolate should examine closely the kind of speech we use. Is it easy to understand? Can it be grasped by ordinary people? Is it current idiom?’ (ES: 81). ‘We must forego all privilege and the use of unintelligible language’. (ES: 87)

·       Centred on humility: ‘It would indeed be a disgrace if our dialogue were marked by arrogance, the use of bared words or offensive bitterness... It is peaceful, has no use for extreme methods, is patient under contradiction and inclines towards generosity.’ (ES: 81)

·       With confidence and in fellowship: ‘Dialogue promotes intimacy and friendship on both sides. It unites them in a mutual adherence to the Good, and thus excludes all self-seeking.’ (ES: 81)

·       And adaptability: ‘The person who speaks is always at pains to learn the sensitivities of his audience, and if reason demands it, he adapts himself and the manner of his presentation to the susceptibilities and the degree of intelligence of his hearers.’ (ES: 81)

This for us, the organisers of the Toledo Dialogues, characterised the shape we felt the meeting should take, that is, non-coercive, universal, clear, humble and adaptable, proceeding in fellowship without the aim of conversion and expressed in ordinary language.

Dialogue According to Ramon Llull

We have already essayed the dangers of taking medieval precedents out of context and using them to support present-day ideological positions. However, one figure who stands out in this respect is the Catalan, Ramon Llull (c.1232 - c.1315).[4] Although his aim in writing his books was primarily conversion, Prof. Hames, who took part in our colloquium, wrote that: ‘while the tolerance may have been slightly overstated, the pastoral setting, the tone of the debate and its outcome are very different from other contemporary polemical works.’[5] In this respect, like Paul VI, his work acted as a guide to how our dialogue should proceed.

In this respect his Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men, (written around 1285, hereafter GT) was very helpful for us.[6] Here, Llull not only sets down an ideal of how he would like to see dialogue conducted but presents in microcosm his own ‘Art’ for embarking upon such.[7] 

The conceit of the text is that a Gentile (or ‘pagan’) will arbitrate the dispute of a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim as to whom holds the truth about the nature of God and religion. The first and most striking aspect of the dialogue is the extent to which respect and autonomy is extended towards the various parties of the dialogue. It would of course be erroneous to lift Llull from his 13^th century context to make him a latter-day religious pluralist. Yet, in the light of the background of his times and its concomitant brutalities and intolerances, the Libre is surprisingly tolerant in the approach it takes to the inter-religious dialogue.

The second thing to note is that the dialogue takes place in a neutral place outside the city where the beauty of the flowers and ‘the trees, the springs and riverbanks’ might soothe and relax the participants. No one party has the monopoly and in fact it is arbitrating by the neutral ‘pagan/gentile’. As well as a neutral physical space, the debate must take place in a neutral atmosphere where all tenets of each religion can be assessed equally.[8] For the purposes of our dialogue, we felt the present-day city of Toledo may provide such a safe and secure base for the dialogue to take place.

Third, participants are advised not to contradict each other when presenting their case and to show respect and love for one another. Here of course the words of Ecclesiam Suam resonate deeply. The understanding, we might say, that interfaith dialogue is a dialogue of pastoral practice as much as intellectual endeavour. In this respect each participant begins his contribution with a prayer to evoke his respective religion.[9] Although the participants in Toledo did not pray together they each had space for their own prayers and each morning a group of participants would sit in silence having listened to sacred readings from the three traditions. It was notable that the dialogue took place on the eve of Easter and Pesach/Passover and during the sacred Islamic month of Ramadam. Thus, each participant was aware, and respectful, of the life-style focus required by the other during these important religious seasons.

Although the encounter might thus be characterised as a ‘dialogue of the heart’, very much in the spirit of Ecclesiam Suam, Llull wants to make the intellectual foundation of all three religions central to the dialogue he proposes. In this respect the starting point for the dialogue will be the five symbolic trees of his Art which summarise the conditions of God, nature and humanity as understood through the medieval scholastic approach common to all three faiths and based on their shared neo-Platonic and Aristotelian heritage.

A Dialogue of the Heart?

So much for the theory – what of the practice? When the encounter was planned each participant really had to make a leap of faith as to what they would find when they encountered their Abrahamic ‘other’ in Toledo. There was, happily, much to dialogue – and dispute – about, we also found time to dream together that perhaps what happened during those few precious days in Toledo may be reproduced in other places and other times. We were under no illusion that ours was a grand task, but, on the other hand, as the guns of war began to roar on the Eastern Front of Ukraine, we also felt the heavy hand of history among the shades of the dispossessed, persecuted and betrayed folk of Al-Andalus/El Sefarad/Hispania.

          Accordingly, to conclude this article I shall summarise some of the key lessons we learnt from our encounter:

Genius Loci

We were richly blessed in the ancient city of Toledo. For all its conflicts, disputes and agonies, the city has inspired countless generations of Jews, Christians and Muslims. One key lesson of our dialogue was the importance to respect the ‘spirituality of place’ – not only, as the Celts say, ‘thin places’ where the Divine meets the human (and surely Toledo is such a place) – but also disputed spaces, spaces where conflict and dispute continue to arise and cry out for human understanding and love.

Levels of Dialogue

We realised more than ever the importance for the inter-religious conversation to occur on several levels at once. As I said earlier, much has happened since Nostra Aetate was promulgated 60 years ago, not least in Vatican footnotes and clarifications of the document. Of these one of the most interesting is the 1984 document from the Secretariat for non-Christians: ‘The attitude of the Church towards followers of other religions’ (May 10^th 1984). The document outlines ‘levels at which the dialogue can take place’. The later document from the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious dialogue ‘Dialogue and Proclamation’ (1984) summarised them as follows:

a) The dialogue of life, where people strive to live in an open and neighbourly spirit, sharing their joys and sorrows, their human problems and preoccupations.

b) The dialogue of action, in which Christians and others collaborate for the integral development and liberation of people.

c) The dialogue of theological exchange, where specialists seek to deepen their understanding of their respective religious heritages, and to appreciate each other's spiritual values.

d) The dialogue of religious experience, where persons, rooted in their own religious traditions, share their spiritual riches, for instance with regard to prayer and contemplation, faith and ways of searching for God or the Absolute.[10]

All four levels: the dialogue of life at which we share our joys and troubles;

the dialogue of works where we collaborate with a view to the well-being of all people, especially those in poverty or sickness; the dialogue of theological exchanges which permits experts to understand in depth their respective religious heritages and; the dialogue of spiritualities which makes available the riches of the life of prayer to all, were apparent at Toledo and contributed to the success of our encounter.

A Contemporary Approach

As we sat in peace in Toledo we were constantly reminded of the pressures of the present-day world with all its troubles groaning for resolution. Accordingly we sought in our dialogue to open up as fully as possible to the demands of that world. This encompassed areas that are ugly and challenging – the growth and distortion of the online world, the problem of violent radicalisation among the young, the dissatisfaction with peaceful political solutions and the breakdown in discourse in the public square. All equally important and all equally pressing. We hope that the insights that were shared may present some ways forward as we all step into an uncertain future. In this respect, I was reminded of this dimension of our encounter when I read Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. Here the Pontiff recalls the English author of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, J.R.R. Tolkein who when faced with the monumental challenges of the Second World War, both in his life and his fiction stressed the ‘small acts of kindness’ that he felt would save the world. As Pope Leo puts it:

The twentieth-century Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien, in the words of a protagonist in one of his novels, described our responsibility in this way: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.” The civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization. [11]

It was these small acts of kindness that took place within our Toledo encounter that remain most significantly in the memory and, in small ways, have helped to build Pope Leo’s ‘civilization of love’ ‘in our times’.

Challenges and Disputes

The encounter we mapped out together was no ‘bed of roses’ and all saw with clear eyes that we had to be challenged in our own deeply held positions and trusts. In this respect Dialogue and Proclamation likewise stressed what it calls ‘the human factors’ that shape dialogue including intolerance, ignorance and socio-political factors that shape our perception of the ‘other’ (DP 52). No dialogue can be taken seriously that does not take these elements seriously into account too. Yet, as we stated at the beginning, all this must be countered by the necessary quality of humility and, dare I say it, ‘unknowing’ which are the necessary prerequisites for successful dialogue.

Conclusion

Following the terrible events in the Middle East these past few years I don’t think it would be possible to recreate the Toledo event any time soon – even though I continue to try. But what I did learn from these ‘Toledo dialogues’ was that interreligious dialogue is as much a question of pastoral/practical theology as it is of dogmatic/systematic theology. And in that ethical need and light I believe dialogue is possible and that we can all contribute to that momentous ethical task of our times. For myself, and those who participated in it, this special and sacred space will forever have the name ‘Toledo’ attached to it. A symbolic ‘Toledo’ of the heart in whose cool halls we are all now invited to enter.

Accordingly, I shall leave the last word with the Chief Rabbi of Turkey, Rabbi Ishak Halevi, who at an interfaith gathering held in Istanbul at the millennium stated:

At the beginning of time, after light was revealed, the darkness came. Now when there are clouds, a strong wind – the spirit of optimism – can push away these clouds. In Jewish prayer, when we speak to the Holy One –Blessed be He – we take three steps back. This is the humility we need now – this is the enactment of peace.[12]

This is the work the world needs now. This is the Duty of Dialogue for us all.

oOo

[1] Quoted in the published talks of this colloquium: Dialogues, Disputes and Dreams among Jews, Christians and Muslims, ed. P. M. Tyler, St Mary’s University Press, 2024, p.144.

[2] Hereafter NA.

[3] 1965, hereafter ES.

[4] Born in 1232/3 into a family that had participated in the ‘reconquest’ of Majorca from its Muslim rulers, Llull, after an early life spent in dissolution, was converted in his twenties by a series of visions of Christ. Most of our knowledge of the rest of his life comes from a biography he helped write towards the end of his life. In it we read that he received the revelation of his ‘Art’ whilst on retreat on Mount Randa in Majorca. Much of the vision was vouchsafed to him by a visitation of a mysterious shepherd boy. We have over 265 works by him written in Latin, Catalan and Arabic, many of which are dedicated to using his ‘Art’ as a means to ‘persuade’ non-believers of the truths of Christianity. To this end he founded a school in Majorca, Miramar, in 1276 with the intention of pursuing this goal, Pope John XXI confirmed its foundation. His ‘life’ tells us he was stoned to death in North Africa whilst engaged in dialogue with Muslims, however contemporary scholars suggest that he died in Majorca where his tomb is today located. He died in late 1315/early 1316.

[5] Dialogues, Disputes and Dreams, p.xxix.

[6] The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men is one of many sets of work on dialogue that Llull wrote, presumably to help those engaged in dialogue such as the students of Miramar. As well as this imaginary debate, Llull wrote accounts of actual debates and guidelines for debate.

[7] According to his biography, revealed to him on Mount Randa in Majorca, the ‘Art’ is Llull’s main contribution to Western thought. Influential from the Renaissance onwards it is credited, through the influence of Leibniz, to have been one of the forerunners of modern computational theory.

[8] As Hames points out (2000: 94) such a ‘level playing field’ was more theoretical than real in the skewed political climate of 13^th Century Spain/Catalonia. A Jew or Muslim would have been in a position of minority in the dominant Christian power structure with the concomitant fear and insecurity that would have attended such a position. Llull’s ‘level playing field’ could only exist in the countries under Muslim rule which he travelled to several times.

[9] For the role of the invocation of the divine name in 13^th Century Kabbalistic Judaism see Hames 2000: 163.

[10] Dialogue and Mission, available at: https://www.dicasteryinterreligious.va/dialogue-and-mission-1984/

[11] Magnifica Humanitas, §213, available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

[12] Quoted by Eliyahu McLean in a recent communication form the ‘Jersualem Peacemakers’, further information can be found on www.peacemakercommunity.org