Jacques Dupuis
From Belgium, Jesuit Fr. Jacques
Dupuis spent 36 years in India before joining the theology
faculty at Rome’s Gregorian University. He served for many
years as an adviser on interreligious issues to Vatican
offices. He is currently under investigation by the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for his book
Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Orbis
Books, 1997). In it, Dupuis argues that God’s “Eternal Word”
existed prior to incarnation in Jesus and was active in
other cultures, inspiring the saving insights each achieves,
while Jesus remains the unique “sacrament” of God. Dupuis
suggests that Christian missionary efforts should have
broader aims than making converts. The goal, he argues,
should be building up the reign of God. A cautious
interpreter of church documents, Dupuis believes that
Christ’s role in salvation is “constitutive” -- that is, all
salvation comes through Christ in some sense. Some
theologians of religious pluralism have criticized Dupuis
for this, as well as for his assertion that other religions
will be “fulfilled” in Christianity at the end of time.
Michael Amaladoss
Indian Jesuit Fr. Michael
Amaladoss believes the most pressing religious challenge
today is defending the oppressed. He supports
development of countercultural communities as alternatives
to values and assumptions of global capitalism. “Such
countercultural communities may not always carry the label
‘Christian. In the past our mission has often targeted the
followers of other religions. The supposition then was that
ours was the only true religion. Our evaluation of other
religions and at least of some of their followers is more
positive today. Besides, faced with the threat of global
disaster brought about by radical modernity, we see in all
those committed to an alternate world allies rather than
enemies.” This tendency to see collaboration on behalf of
justice as more important than religious affiliation has
alarmed Vatican officials. Amaladoss is the author of
Making All Things New: Dialogue, Pluralism, and
Evangelization in Asia (Orbis, 1990).
Raimundo Panikkar
Born in Spain to a Catholic mother
and Hindu father, Fr. Raimundo Panikkar has long specialized
in the dialogue between Christianity and Asian religions. Of
his first trip from Europe to India, Panikkar once wrote: “I
left as a Christian, I found myself a Hindu, and I return as
a Buddhist, without ever having ceased to be a Christian.”
His best-known books include The Cosmotheandric
Experience (Orbis, 1993) and The Intra-religious
Dialogue (Paulist, 1978). Panikkar believes that while
Christians must remain devoted to Christ, it is not
necessary to believe that all truth is exhausted by Christ,
much less by the historical person Jesus of Nazareth. He has
argued that although Jesus is referred to as the Son of God
in the New Testament, this does not mean the “Son of God” is
always and only Jesus.
Paul Knitter
A former Divine Word Missionary
priest, Knitter has long been interested in the intersection
between Catholicism and social justice (he once was the
target of an FBI probe for his support of Latin American
liberation theology). The author of No Other Name? (Orbis,
1985), Knitter sees a gap between the experience of
Catholics in interreligious dialogue and the church’s
official theology. In dialogue, Knitter says, Catholics
develop a respect for another’s religion and sense that it
would be wrong to demand they abandon it; yet the church’s
teaching requires just that conclusion. Knitter argues that
the Holy Spirit can be active in other religions apart from
the incarnate Christ. To deny this, he believes, is to
commit the ancient heresy of “subordinating” the Spirit to
the other persons of the Trinity. Knitter also regards
exclusive statements about Jesus in the New Testament, such
as calling him the “one Mediator between God and humanity,”
as doxological -- the language of devotion and love,
not strict logic.
Aloysius Pieris
Jesuit Fr. Aloysius Pieris is the
founder and director of the Tulana Research Centre in
Kalaniya, Sri Lanka. Pieris earned the first doctorate in
Buddhist studies ever awarded to a non-Buddhist by the
University of Sri Lanka, and is viewed as one of Asian
Catholicism’s leading experts on interreligious dialogue. He
is the author of An Asian Theology of Liberation (Orbis,
1996). Pieris believes the fundamental Christian
commitment must be not to theological language but to work
on behalf of justice, and his views have strongly
influenced the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences on
this point. “Spirituality,” he has written, “is the radical
involvement with the poor and the oppressed, and is what
creates theology.” Though an advocate of liberation
theology, Pieris argues that the Latin American version,
based as it is primarily on social analysis is not enough
but must also reflect Eastern emphasis on interior
liberation.
National Catholic Reporter,
Sept 15, 2000