A Passion for Dialogue

I am currently musing over the finals essays from my Catholic Social Thought & the Law seminar. Asked to identify the “hardest question” that emerged from the course, many students focused on the role of religious values in public / political life, and saw the chief reason for excluding “personal” perspectives is that they tend to heighten tensions and divisions.

There would be much to discuss on this point – but my specific question, as we gear up for a long, hot, pre-election summer, is what your thoughts are on sources within Catholic Social Thought for moving beyond culture war paralysis. As Catholics who care deeply about our legal and political system, what resources do we have that will help us get to the point of both appreciating the need for diverse approaches and the possibility of different prudential judgments in political life, and at the same, offering to public discourse the unique and profound beauty of the Catholic Church’s vision of the human person and social life?

Take, for example, the cultural divide over Gibson’s Passion – what struck me was that both sides (those who see the film as anti-Semitic, and those who just can’t see it) could say – with complete sincerity – “it’s so clear – how can they not see it?” It seems like the hardest part of that debate was getting folks to acknowledge that people really did see the film in very different ways. In case you’re interested, I have just added to my papers “A Passion for Dialogue” – a short essay recently published in Living City (the Focolare’s monthly magazine of religion, culture and inter-faith dialogue) which sets out a few ideas for moving beyond the divide.

Amy