Key elements of Benedict XVI’s principles for inter-faith dialogue

Colin Patterson is a student at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family. As part of his course work, he completed an excellent and very readable assessment of the key elements of interfaith dialogue according to Benedict XVI, now available on the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission website.

To be perfectly honest, it is more an assessment of Joseph Ratzinger’s approach to interfaith dialogue, based as it is largely on the works of Ratzinger collected in the volume “Truth and Tolerance”. As such, it is an very good summary, and worthy reading for all Catholics trying to get their heads around the way interfaith dialogue fits into orthodox Catholic teaching.

The next step (Colin and all other B16 watchers out there) would be to synthesise Benedict’s approach to interfaith issues since his election in April 2005. There is enough material there for us already to form an idea, but it would be interesting to “join the dots” with the theology of the man who was once Cardinal Ratzinger.