Buddhist and Catholic, priests and theologians practice ‘double belonging’

(RNS) — In a dimly lit Roman Catholic church in Manhattan, a dozen or so congregants sit as the Rev. Michael Holleran leads them in contemplative prayer. There is some singing, and some prayers said aloud throughout the hour-and-a-half-long worship service. Every so often Holleran rings a bell three times, meant to awaken worshippers from “sleep and into a consciousness of God’s presence.”

But the core of the session is the repetition of a word of each participant’s own choosing — many choose “peace,” “love” or “truth.” If their mind wanders, they are instructed to return to the word.

This form of prayer is often compared to meditation, due to the silent repetition and the focus required. Though contemplative prayer has ancient roots in Christianity, Holleran takes inspiration from the longer tradition of Buddhism — fittingly, since in addition to being a Catholic priest, Holleran is a Buddhist sensei.

Holleran, the pastor of the Church of Notre Dame in Morningside Heights, practices “double belonging,” a term coined by Paul Knitter in his 2009 book “Without Buddha, I Could Not Be a Christian.” Knitter, a former Catholic priest and a major influence on many Catholics who subscribe to Buddhist ideology, insists the two faiths are not in conflict.

The two have been compared favorably at least since 1870, when Lydia Maria Child, writing in The Atlantic magazine, reported, “The Tibetan lama listened respectfully to the Jesuit priest and replied, ‘Your religion is the same as ours.'”

As Holleran has explored his religious identity, he too has found a “vibrant synthesis” between Buddhism and Catholicism.

“I don’t see any conflict among any of these traditions,” he said. “If you’re actually going deep enough into what they’re really all about, that is to say, finding union with God, making the world a better place, transformation of your own consciousness, et cetera.”

The Rev. Michael Holleran. Video screen grab

Holleran said that his unifying approach to Catholicism and Buddhism doesn’t necessarily extend to other combinations of faiths such as Judaism and Christianity. A joint practice of those faiths might be harder to fit into the double belonging theme, he said.

Raised Roman Catholic on Long Island, Holleran, 72, joined the Jesuits at Fordham University, where he also first learned about Buddhism in a course in world religions. Eventually, he became a Carthusian, a contemplative order of monks, spending a decade in monasteries in Europe and 12 in Vermont before returning to New York in 1994 to serve as a parish priest.

In services at the Church of Notre Dame, he doesn’t mention Buddhism, keeping the two faiths separate. But on Wednesdays, he leads the Dragon’s Eye Zendo, or meditation hall, via Zoom, where he often brings in Christian Scripture or tells the story of Catholic figures.

Chad Thralls, a teaching fellow at Seton Hall University, a Catholic institution in New Jersey, attends both Holleran’s contemplative prayer sessions and his meditations and teaches about Buddhism in his classes.

In a recent lecture, Thralls explained the first chapter of Knitter’s book to a classroom full of undergraduates, all raised Catholic, then presented a prompt: “In the book, Knitter notes that one of his students questioned whether he was ‘spiritually sleeping around’ by practicing both Christianity and Buddhism. Is Knitter cheating on Jesus?”

Knitter, 83, doesn’t think so. When he began preparing for ordination in Rome during the Second Vatican Council, a major reexamination of Catholicism that took place in the 1960s, the church encouraged Catholics to learn about other religions. Knitter’s interest in other faiths eventually led him to question Christianity’s status as the “superior religion” he’d grown up hearing it was. He began to understand Christianity from a Buddhist perspective.

Paul Knitter. Photo via Facebook

“It was as if I was wearing Buddhist glasses while reading Christian texts,” said Knitter, who has since left the priesthood to become a professor of comparative theology. He is now retired from the Union Theological Seminary in New York and is a member of both a Christian parish and a Buddhist community in Wisconsin.

Knitter said he gets little pushback from either Christians or Buddhists. In the academic community, however, his faith identity has proved controversial. Many religious scholars think you cannot be both.

Knitter disagrees. “Religions need each other to understand themselves,” he said.

Knitter’s Catholic critics say it’s impossible to wholeheartedly practice two faiths. In an article for Catholic.com, the Rev. John D. Dreher, a pastor in Rhode Island, argued that the two are incompatible.

“In Catholic teaching, all men are creatures, called out of nothingness to know God. All men are also sinners, cut off from God and destined to death,” he wrote. “Eastern religions, in contrast, lack revelation of God as a personal Creator who radically transcends his creatures. Though possessing many praiseworthy elements, they nonetheless seek God as if he were part of the universe, rather than its Creator.”

Holleran said, “Mystics have been crucified in all traditions, not just Christian, Jewish, Muslim. They’re always a problem, a danger because they challenge the limitations of the institution.”

The New York Archdiocese did not reply to requests for comment about whether double belonging is something it supports among its priests.

In April, Knitter helped organize a retreat with the University of Wisconsin-Madison in which two dozen “interfaith fellows” from the university’s Center for Religion and Global Citizenry practiced a variety of faiths to better understand them. During the retreat, held at Holy Wisdom Monastery, they experienced contemplative prayer and Zen and Tibetan meditation, among other practices.

Although none of the students definitely said they would practice double belonging after the retreat, many said it was an enlightening experience.

“Through the contemplative practice, we discover a larger self,” Knitter said. “We’re finding ourselves as part of a larger reality, which is called by different names. God, Nirvana, Allah, Yahweh.”

Knitter doesn’t expect that people will ever become completely pluralistic in their faith, but he does hope they, like the Wisconsin students, may become more open to the simple idea that, he said, “People might be more open to learning from others.”

A version of this story originally appeared on FaithWire.

Also from Michael Holleran:

* * *

https://josephsciambra.com/ny-archdiocese-priest-jesus-did-not-understand-homosexuality/

NY Archdiocese Priest: Jesus Did Not Understand Homosexuality

. . .During a lecture entitled: “Sodomites? Really?,” sponsored by the LGBT group at St. Paul’s the Apostle Church in New York City, on September 28, 2014, Holleran argued, among other things, that the Sodom and Gomorrah story had “nothing” to do with homosexuality, as, according to him “they must be understood in the context of their time.” With regards to the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, according to Holleran, they are built upon “shaky ground.” He said:

“…if a sincere gay person, for example, is struggling with his or her own inner discovery, then says let me look at Scripture – oh, it doesn’t say what they always said if you look at it from this point of view…then maybe my experience does have some validity…On the levels of truth that everything is infallible – This is on shaky ground according to the way it’s been presented to me and been presented over the centuries, then I actually have not only a right but a duty maybe to start questioning this. And to say maybe my experience – What Jesus is saying to me now! What the spirit is saying to the Churches now! …is something really important that we need to hear.”

He envisions change within the Church, like James Martin, through dialogue: “love shows itself in the ability to dialogue.” As an example, he pointed to a meeting between a Catholic Bishop and a “gay couple;” as he related the story, Fr. Holleran said that, afterwards, the Bishop remarked: “…how can we call people like that objectively disordered?” Holleran concluded: “what transforms hearts is when you really actually do hear people’s experience.” In his book “Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity,” James Martin said the same thing:

Many church leaders do not know L.G.B.T. people who are public about their sexuality. That lack of familiarity and friendship means it is more difficult to be sensitive. How can you be sensitive to a person’s situation if you don’t know them?

Holleran also described “The Holy Trinity” as an example of “an alternative lifestyle. During this same talk, Holleran mentioned how he discussed all of these issues with a confused same-sex attracted young man: “I had a young gay man, last year, who came to me for spiritual direction.” Holleran then described how he schooled him on just how wrong the Church is about homosexuality.

During a “Gay Spirituality” retreat held at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Brooklyn, Holleran claimed that “gay” men are more receptive to spirituality because they practice anal sex:

“…men hate church and spirituality because they have to sit still and they have to be receptive. There is nothing more threatening to a male than being receptive. I mean, think about it sexually – maybe that’s why gay men are more ready for it.”

He also said: “I don’t care what people say, I think Gay Pride Parade is wonderful; all those people dancing around with not many clothes on…it’s beautiful.”. . .