Will Asian cultures be included in the Vatican s fraternity efforts?
Pope Francis is taking church teachings on human fraternity to the next level
Pope Francis (center) prays during a livestreamed weekly private audience in the library of the apostolic palace in the Vatican on March 10. (Photo: Vatican Media/AFP)
Pope Francis’ immediate predecessors, St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, watched with keen eyes the Catholic Church’s relationship with other religions moving from “confrontation to dialogue,” to quote the title of a well-known book written by Jacques Dupuis, a Belgian theologian.
Jesuit Dupuis (1923-2004), who spent decades in India from 1948, focused on Hindu-Christian dialogue and ultimately faced Vatican investigation for his “unclear” statements about “uniqueness of Christ” and on the role of “other religions in God’s plan of salvation of the human race.” The stress of the investigation, his friends claim, accelerated his d