Theological Pluralism as Repressive Tolerance

In a letter to Cardinal Roger Mahoney, Archbishop of Los Angeles, members of the Hindu-Roman Catholic dialogue group responded to Dominus Iesus and the scandal it has created both in India and in the United States. The letter informed the Cardinal that the non-Roman Catholics among us “resist any attempt to be converted to the Roman Catholic faith,” a reference to the declaration’s claim that interreligious dialogue is “part of the Church’s evangelizing mission” [§2]. The signatories to the letter go on to state that while they “understand the need for faiths to hold firm within their own belief systems,” even still, they “find contradictory the notion … that there can be equality of persons but no equality of doctrinal content.” This statement I take to be a statement of support for a “pluralist” model of religious diversity which Dominus Iesus sharply rejects. This letter, which was signed not only by the Hindu participants in the dialogue group but also by some of its Catholic members, is illustrative of the struggle currently taking place within the Roman Catholic church both in the United States, where I do my ministry as a theologian, and also in India, where I have never been. The letter singles out problems having to do with the practice of interreligious dialogue and also the pluralist theology of religions. I think these two issues are intimately related.