Dom William Skudlarek, OSB
Secretary General of the DIM/MID
News of the DIM/MID
Editing
This year the documents relating to the second Monastic/Muslim meeting, held at Qom in Iran in October 2013, have been edited. The book entitled Monks and Muslims II: to create communities of friendship is published in English by the Liturgical Press in its series devoted to monastic interreligious dialogue. The Secretary-General of the DIM/MID, Dom William Skudlarek composed an article for Spiritual Quest, bi-annual periodical of ethics and spirituality, published jointly by the Centre for Cultural and Ethical Studies in London and the International Institute of Islamic Studies in Qom. The article, entitled ‘The Practice of Charity in Catholic Spirituality’ is intended for a special issue, ‘Spiritual Dimensions of charity in Islam and Christianity’, which will be published next year.
The text of Volume III of Dilatato Corde, an international and multilingual periodical on the dialogue of religious experience, is in the press.
Relationships with Institutions
The Council of the DIM/MID approved affiliation (a reciprocal relationship of exchange) with Spirituality Studies, the periodical of the Society for Spirituality Studies. The Society is based in the Republic of Slovakia. Dom William has become a member of the editorial committee of the periodical.
Meetings
Several meetings have occurred in the course of the year 2013:
Apart from the editorial committee of Dilatato Corde there was participation in the Latin American meeting of EMLA (cf. the account by Dom Skudlarek on the website; http://www.osb.org/abecca/EMLAXI/index.html), a meeting at Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ontario, on the Catholic-Mennonite dialogue, to which Dom Skudlarek had this time been invited by Dr Mohammad Ali Shomali for an expansion of this dialogue with Islam.
In October he participated also in the meeting of European co-operators of the DIM/MID, of which an account may be found in this issue of the Bulletin; at the formation session at Citeaux on ‘Nostra Aetate after fifty years’; and finally at the Italian commission of the DIM/MID co-ordinated by Br Matteo Nicolini-Zani of Bose. This commission, composed of a score of members, included four Hindus, two Buddhists, two Zen Buddhists, a Tibetan Buddhist, a Taoist and a Muslim for a dialogue on the experience and understanding of monastic life. Fr. Indunil Janakaratne Kodithuwakku Kankanamalage, Sub-Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, was also present at this meeting.
The Future
A Meeting with the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue
Last summer Dom Skudlarek had a meeting with Fr Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. He affirmed that the Council was grateful to the DIM/MID for everything it had done over the course of the years, and suggested a meeting between the members of DIM/MID and the staff of the CPDI to pool information and seek a way of working together. The meeting is planned for 4th June, 2014, in the offices of the CPDI in Rome.
A documentary film on the history and activities of the DIM/MID
DIM/MID has signed a contract with Les Films du Large (Aubin Hellot and Lizette Lemoine) to produce a documentary on the DIM/MID. This film will be created sometime about 28th October, 2015, for the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate.
Planning for a third Monastic/Muslim meeting with the Iranian Shiite Muslims
Mohammed Ali Shomali and Dom Skudlarek have begun to plan a third meeting, which will take place 17th-22nd October, 2014, in the monastery of San Masseo (community of Bose) at Assisi. Some public event would also be planned to take place in Rome. The general theme of this dialogue will be ‘The Community’.