Reflections upon receiving the Luce Grant for a Chair in the Theology of Interfaith Dialogue
Why is this Luce Grant important and what might it accomplish?The Luce Grant is given rarely to seminaries. The fact that Aquinas Institute has received this Grant indicates that the vision of Aquinas for making a significance difference in American life speaks strongly in a positive way to the Luce Foundation.
What might this vision offer? In its proposal, Aquinas Institute offers an authentic catholic vision. It offers no narrow sectarian catholicity, but a truly catholic openness to the truth wherever it might be found. Catholic means universal, not only geographically but intellectually, a catholicity that does not fear the truth it learns from others. Nor does it hesitate to respectfully voice the truth from its own deepest tradition.
To plan for a position among its faculty for someone who will keep us open and learning from the full human community is to set the Institute on a course of deep and full catholicity. It is to offer the church a window into those whose lives and worship differs from ours, yet who are our neighbors. It is to make available to our students the knowledge they will need to move with respect and awareness in the global community.