Like many folks, my imagination has been captured by the story of the woman who was denied communion at her mother's funeral, reportedly because she is a lesbian. Now there's a new twist to the story, saying that she is also a Buddhist--or at any rate that she is interested in Buddhist philosophy and practice--and that her religious leaning may also be a reason she was denied communion.
I actually don't much care why she was denied communion; every pastoral bone in my body says that a funeral is not the place for a theological conversation and is the place to offer grace and love as freely as humanly possible. I'm not Catholic, though, and I do understand that different traditions carry different rules about communion.
What I'm really interested in, though, is the conversation that emerges from this new piece of information, the idea that this woman is a Buddhist-Catholic or a Catholic-Buddhist or just someone who resonates with both traditions. There's enough for a whole platform address in there, but I'm curious about how and when religious traditions have encouraged syncretism (the blending of different beliefs) as well as how and when they draw a line. And how about us individually? In the multi-religious marketplace are we free to combine at will? Must we do within a community in order to do so responsibly? What are the risks, and the rewards, of finding our own religious paths?
No comments:
Post a Comment