THIRD CATHOLIC/SHI’A CONFERENCE JULY 2007
HEYTHROP COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, AND WORTH ABBEY, CRAWLEY, SUSSEX
Report by Sr Agnes Wilkins, OSB, Stanbrook Abbey
This was the third biennial conference dedicated to dialogue between Catholics and Shi’a Muslims. These conferences grew out of an encounter between Dr Mohammad Shomali, currently Head of the Department of Religions at Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran, and the former Abbot of Ampleforth Abbey, Timothy Wright, OSB, who currently resides in Rome and is adviser to the Vatican on Dialogue with Islam. It happened that Mohammad was doing a doctorate on Ethics at Manchester University and wished to come into contact with Christians with whom he could dialogue. He attended a Focolare meeting and met there an Ampleforth monk who took him to Ampleforth and introduced him to Abbot Timothy. He was then asked to speak (which he did with great success) to the community, and from there scholarly exchanged were initiated between Ampleforth Abbey in conjunction with Heythrop College (University of London), and it was from these exchanges that the current conferences, still unique of their kind, grew. This year, after the initial day at Heythrop, the monastic venue for the follow-up was Worth Abbey in Sussex. The monastery is set in beautiful, rolling countryside with stunning views of the Sussex Downs, and boasts a magnificent modern round church as its focal point.
The subject of this year’s conference was ‘Ethics in Today’s Society’. On the first day at Heythrop, Dr Patrick Riordan, SJ, assistant director of the Heythrop Institute for Religion, Ethics and Public Life, gave a general introductory paper on Catholic Ethics, followed by a similar paper giving the Shi’a perspective by Hujjatull’Islam wal’Muslimeen Moezzi, director of the Islamic Centre of England. We then had two presentations on environmental ethics, one from John Flannery, a layman who works part-time at Heythrop while studying for his doctorate on the theological encounter between Shi’a Islam and Eastern Christianity in 17th Century Persia, and the second from Mr Makbu Rahim. After this we proceeded to Worth Abbey, about an hour’s travelling distance away. We had a lighter session on Benedictine spirituality in the evening, which included part of a video of the now famous television series ‘The Monastery’, in which five young men were filmed as they lived through an experience of life at Worth Abbey. Between times, those who wished could go to the Divine Office in the abbey church, with the monks, whilst the Muslims were given a room to use for their own prayers.
A large part of the morning of the second day, Sunday, was taken up by a very impressive celebration of the weekly parish Mass in the monastery church. This was followed by group discussions on the environmental ethics papers, and then lunch. We were fed handsomely in the school refectory, on delicious, imaginative vegetarian meals. In the afternoon we had a twin presentation of Bioethics, first from Mohammad Shomali (it was striking how close the Shi’a were to the Catholic position on major issues, especially where the sanctity of life was concerned.) The Catholic presentation was given by Professor Celia Deane-Drummond, a lecturer at the new University of Chester. In the evening we had two very good presentations on spiritual direction from Fr Luke, novice master of Worth Abbey, and Mohammad Shomali. It was amazing how close the latter was to the Rule of St Benedict!
On Monday morning, the format was the same: two presentations followed by group discussions. Dr Catherine Cowley, a Religious of the Assumption who lectures at Heythrop College, gave a very masterly presentation from the Christian perspective. The Muslim presentation was also very good. All these papers will eventually be printed in book form. The final session was taken up by Abbot Timothy Wright. It was more a meditation than a conference, and consisted of many texts from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, the Qur’an and the early Christian Fathers, around the theme of remembering, and it drew parallels from the three faiths about our mindfulness of God and His remembering us.
And so came an end one more of our ground-breaking conferences. We look forward to the next one in two years’ time, but meanwhile we were blessed with glorious weather in this wettest of wet summers, and have happy memories to tide us over.