Inter-religious dialogue conference in southern Italy (1993)

THU 29 APR 93

In Apulia, at the Abbey of Santa Maria della Scala, near the city of Noci in southern Italy, for an inter-religious gathering on “Guilt and Forgiveness.”
    The abbot asked me to preach at Mass this evening, for the feast of Saint Catherine of Siena, and my meditation this morning was accompanied by much discursive consideration of this twenty-something lay Dominican who in the 14th century dictated letters to popes and prelates and then was declared a Doctor of the Church by Paul VI.
    Some notes on the talks.
    Italian phenomenologist of religion Pettazzoni wrote a book in 1929 entitled La confessione dei peccati, “The Confession of Sins.” He said confession is based on a primitive, totalizing, magical world view. Sin disturbs the divine order. To confess means to “invoke” the sin in order to purify it. But both Christianity and Buddhism point beyond this magical view.
    The problem in Buddha’s time was a “mechanistic” paradigm of karma. He said that what counts is intentionality, motivation. There is no karma without mindfulness and an act of the will.
    “In Buddhism, ‘Dharma” occupies the place which ‘God” occupies in Christianity.” Buddhadasa is quoted to sustain this affirmation. D. T. Suzuki said that both Buddhists and Meister Eckhart worship “the Nameless Nothing.”
    Venerable Seevali, Theravada Buddhist, says that “guilt” is an unwholesome thought, and “remorse” is a hindrance. Remorse is grieving over evil done, good not done. Most guilty feelings come not from the awareness of having committed gravely evil actions but from a sense of personal inadequacy in the face of too-high expectations we have for ourselves (I agree). Buddhism sees we do right and wrong, although our essential being is of Buddha-nature. Our minds become impure through wrongdoing. Monastic discipline: casuistry and confession do not affect the monk’s karmic destiny, which must be worked out through practice of virtues, meditation, and wisdom. “Forgiveness” is of the Buddha-nature; it is expressed through forbearance, tolerance, patience, compassion.
    Yesterday afternoon I was translating for the Hindu and the Buddhist, and so I could not take notes on Francis Tiso’s talk, which was erudite, as expected. Several were pleased with my talk at Mass.
    Supper conversation with Tiso and Father Sacchi: on the coming collapse of Catholic structures, because the vast majority of Roman Catholics do not live their belonging to the Church in the context of a Eucharistic community. Structures will collapse, also because most priests formed in the clerical paradigm will die out early next century.
    Tomorrow afternoon I am to give a talk on chapter eleven of the Bhagavad Gita. My focus will be on Arjuna’s cry, “God, I do not understand you!”
    A Muslim speaker stated that the Turks were the only people who embraced Islam on their own initiative. He also spoke of a young man in Turin who wanted to “become a Sufi” without having to hear any sermons about Islam.