BRIDGE\CRAFT                                                                             VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1, PAGE 7

ABOVE:  MARCC worked intensively through the post-riots summer last year. Executive Board, June 2001:  (L-R) Duane Holm, director of MARCC; Byron Branson, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers); William Woods, Diocese of Southern Ohio; Arlene Katz, Jewish Community Relations Council; Alice Skirtz, past President of MARCC; Sr. Joan Krimm, Vice-President of MARCC; Rev. Taylor T. Thompson, President of MARCC. Sr. Joan has since become President. For more information about Archdiocesan participation in MARCC, call Connie Widmer, Archdiocesan delegate to the MARCC executive board, or Brian Henties, at the Archdiocesan Social Action office, 421-3131, Ext 236.
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Tracy Weisberger, Yavneh Day School, and Brett Stern, Isaac M. Wise Temple, joined Catholic and Jewish colleagues at a dinner/ workshop at Yavneh Day School on April 29

“Spirituality and Ecumenism”

Lecture by Walter Cardinal Kasper, President of the Vatican Pontifical Council For Promoting Christian Unity. 

(This lecture was delivered at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago on April 16 under the auspices of CTU’s Cardinal Bernardin Center and the Office of Ecumenism and Interreligious Relations of the Archdiocese of Chicago.  Excerpts printed with permission.)

“...An ecumenical spirituality which is shaped by the Bible...cannot be one-sidedly introverted or purely ecclesiocentric.  It will have to seek out life and serve life.  It must be as much concerned with human every-day life and every-day experiences as with the great questions of human life and survival day-to-day, but also with human religions and human cultural achievements.  According to a principle from the late Middle Ages and of Ignatius of Loyola, God has to be found in all things.

“...An ecumenical spirituality will therefore be an examination of conscience, in the existing reality of the church, always thinking ahead   prophetically.  However, it will not run away from reality, but labour patiently and persistently to find consensus.  It will attempt to keep the unity of the Spirit (Eph 4:3).

“...Ecumenical dialogue does absolutely not mean abandoning one’s own identity in favor of an ecumenical “hotch-potch”.  It is a profound misunderstanding to see it as compromising doctrinal relativism.  The aim is not to find the lowest common denominator.  Ecumenical dialogue does not aim at spiritual impoverishment but at mutual spiritual enrichment and at the induction into the whole truth.

(continued on page 10.)

Catholic & Jewish Educators

—cont’d from page 3.

church teaches that God wants everyone to be  in relationship with God. The Church does not say that this or that group won’t be saved. Rather God will save who God saves.” Other Catholic educators quickly pointed out, “That’s not what  we used to teach.”                                                                                     

Jewish educators volunteered their   experiences of teaching young people about Christianity. One took seventh and eighth graders to Catholic Mass at Good Shepherd Church. “The kids were fascinated,” said Joel Ehrenpreis of Isaac M. Wise Temple. David Leopold of Rockdale Temple spoke of teaching seventh graders about both traditions, “We spend half the year on Judaism and the other half on  Christianity.” Brett Stern also of Isaac M. Wise shared thoughtfully with Catholics and Jews at her table how interreligious marriage had already prompted new thinking in their program. “We have a lot of kids whose families are half-Jewish and half-Catholic. We have a tendency to focus on the Jewish half of the child’s life as if that were the whole reality. But we   decided we also need to address the Christian part.”

Both Jewish and Catholic educators repeatedly voiced concern that the   excellent turnout be a beginning for future joint ventures. Interested in  joining the next effort? A session on     Passover/Easter  is now being scheduled for late March 2003.  Call the American Jewish Committee at 621-4020, the Archdiocesan Ecumenical and Interfaith Office at 421-3131, ext. 224 to learn more and get involved.

This event was produced by the Catholic-Jewish Educators committee. Members included: Adele Ihwanusa  and Joan Tessarolo of the Catholic Schools Office; Sr. Elaine Becker and Tanya Stager                of the Religious Education Office; Chris Schell, St. John’s Deer Park; Marlene Henkel, St. Gabriel’s School; and JoAnne Fischesser of St. Francis deSales, Lebanon.

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