William Skudlarek is a monk of Saint John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, and Secretary General of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. In 2011, this group launched Dilatato Corde, an international, multilingual journal to record, reflect on and examine interreligious dialogue at the level of spiritual experience. This scholarly resource provides a vehicle for monastic men and women to share "dilatato corde" (which means "with an expanded heart") what is important to them in dialogue with others.
Brother David Steindl-Rast who has been active in this kind of thing for years once wrote:
"Interreligious dialogue becomes a different reality in a monastic setting. Shared practice gives it a new actuality. When silence is the matrix for dialogue, the partners do not start out from positions set over against one another; rather, they start out from a shared position. Starting from their common ground, they proceed to compare their respective peculiarities. This kind of dialogue between traditions holds great promise for increased cooperation and understanding, because a deep communality is present from the outset."
Perusing the material of this online publication housed on the organization's website, www.dimmid.org, we see the serious intention to cover subjects such as dialogue, holiness, interest in other religions, vocation, the omnipresence of God, the monk as archetype, and more. This paperback contains the first two volumes of Dilatato Corde, edited by William Skudlarek.
