Earlier this month I had the distinct honor and pleasure of participating in the National Catholic-Sikh Dialogue organized by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the World Sikh Council. It’s a multi-year effort designed to deepen understanding between the two communities. As one of the ten Sikh participants I gained a great deal of knowledge and reaffirmed a bunch of truths I hold dear. I also made some new, awesome Catholic friends!

I once again saw that people of faith have a great deal in common, and that interfaith dialogue is itself part of the spiritual practice of being a Sikh. Through dialogue, you learn a great deal about yourself and gain some perspective on your faith. One of the things I appreciated about Catholicism was the discipline that Catholics keep around “orders.” There are many different orders of Catholics — like Franciscans, Dominicans, Paulists, and others. Some orders may be monks and nuns, while others live in the world. But they all seem to get along in a very organized and disciplined way. They all agree to a core set of beliefs and practices, and then they have slight differences in focus. I was impressed by that. I imagine Sikhs would have the same thing–our unifying feature would be the minimum discipline imposed by the Rehat Maryada (5K’s, etc) and then the ‘orders’ could form around different things like kirtan, sewa, and exercise (:)). Sometimes it seems that we need to get along better as Sikhs, and the Catholics who’ve been around for about 2000 years have figured out how to do it.

Official WSC Press Release:

Sikh-Catholic National Retreat, Washington, US, September 28-30

Representatives of the World Sikh Council - America Region (WSC-AR) and the US Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) met September 28-30 at St. Paul’s College in Washington, DC for a three-day Sikh-Catholic bilateral national interreligious retreat.

The objective of this retreat was for the Sikh and Catholic communities to further deepen dialogue and trust among the two communities. The theme was “Honoring holiness in and out of our traditions.”

The Sikh and Catholic delegations were comprised of about 8 representatives from each community with about half of the participants being young adults (age 35 and younger).

The Catholic delegation was headed by Rev. Canon Francis Tiso, Associate Director of USCCB’s Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interfaith Affairs. The Sikh delegation was led by Dr. Tarunjit Singh, Chair of the Interfaith Committee of WSC-AR.

The retreat began on Friday, September 28, with a presentation on interfaith understanding in Sikh belief, history and practice by Dr. Tarunjit Singh. The next day, Rev. Canon Francis Tiso shared an overview of the spiritual path of a Catholic. This was followed by a Sikh biographical presentation about Bhai Kanhiaya by Mr. Yashpal Singh and on Bhagat Puran Singh by Mr. Savraj Singh. Mr. Neil Sloan then presented the Catholic biographical sketch of Saint Gianna Molla. Sikhs and Catholics prayed together from their faiths. On Sunday morning, the Sikh and Catholic young adults led in a shared worship service.

Both communities concurred that the dialogue was beneficial in building deeper trust among the two faiths and is looking forward to holding its next retreat in early 2009 on the tentative proposed theme of “Nature of God: Convergence, Divergence, & Our Spiritual Paths.”