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New McGinley professor to focus on fostering interfaith understanding
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NEW YORK (CNS) -- Fordham University's new Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society said he hoped to devote his tenure to "seeking common ground on which we Jews and Christians and Muslims can recognize each other as men and women of faith in the Holy One." Wearing the large medallion that signifies his new position, Jesuit Father Patrick Ryan delivered his first lecture as McGinley professor Nov. 18. He follows in the footsteps of Cardinal Avery Dulles, who held the chair from its creation in 1988 until his death in December 2008. The priest said the similarities and differences in Jewish, Christian and Muslim understandings of faith offer hope for a future of mutual understanding. "For Christians the expression of their faith has often entailed the elaboration of creeds, organized statements of the content of faith or beliefs," he said. "But liturgy, sacred music, mysticism, asceticism and heroic charity have also played important roles as expressions of faith within the cumulative tradition of Christianity." He said theology is more central to Christian faith than it is to Jews and Muslims and that Christians often misunderstand "the cumulative traditions and law-centered lives of observant Jews and Muslims."
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