Berkley Center

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt in-person gatherings, Georgetown research and partnerships are advancing ecumenical dialogue and interreligious understanding in the digital age.

Videoconferencing—popularized by the pandemic—offers both challenges and possibilities for ecumenical dialogue, according to Georgetown scholar Jeanine W. Turner, a professor in the Communication, Culture, and Technology Program and affiliate professor in the McDonough School of Business. 

Turner explores digital dialogue in a new article from The Ecumenical Review, co-authored by Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. 

“While video has provided the opportunity for a sense of face-to-face interaction, the technology cannot fully replicate many of the dimensions of an in-person meeting,” says Turner. “Ecumenical dialogue goes beyond the exchange of ideas but requires an encounter that is transformative, which can be limited by digital connections.”

Dialogue in the Digital Age 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most ecumenical dialogue—a complex type of conversation that aims to bring together different Christian traditions in conversation—took place in-person. 

“Those involved privileged the need for in-person, face-to-face meetings in order to create the context necessary to support the listening and trust needed for such conversations,” the co-authors write.

Videoconferencing has been a helpful alternative when face-to-face is impossible and provides several advantages for churches and other organizations, including economic benefits, says Turner, whose latest book, Being Present: Commanding Attention at Work (and at Home) by Managing Your Social Presence, is forthcoming from Georgetown University Press. 

Videoconferencing can provide access and convene larger numbers than meetings that require in-person, face-to-face presence. But the move to a virtual environment can complicate the work of dialogue in and beyond religious settings. 

“Many industries must grapple with situations where the need for building the rapport, trust, and relationship dimensions of a conversation demands the synchronous and spontaneous channel of in-person, face-to-face interaction,” says Turner, citing a range of industries from education to finance. 

As churches and other organizations prepare to enter a post-pandemic world, considering how videoconferencing impacts dialogue remains a critical task when choosing ways to convene as a group. As Turner explains, 

Both churches and religious organizations, as well as other industries, need to weigh the short-term efficiencies and economic gains from videoconferencing with the long-term loss of relationship-building that may happen outside of planned, task-oriented meetings. 

Interreligious Action on Global Issues

Much as Turner has supported ecumenical dialogue through new research, Georgetown has continued to collaborate with Vatican partners to convene virtual interreligious conversations during the pandemic. 

In October 2020, the university hosted a two-day conference on “Interreligious Responses to Laudato Si” to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment.  

Cardinal Miguel Ayuso, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, provided a keynote address at the conference. The cardinal stressed how we need to work across lines of religious and cultural difference to tackle the social and ecological challenges of global warming, commenting,  

We need to think of ourselves as a single family dwelling in a common home. All of us, irrespective of whichever religion we profess, have a moral and religious responsibility to shape an ethic of care for the earth.

Interreligious solidarity also motivates Georgetown work on another issue of global concern: nuclear disarmament. 

That was the focus of a December 2020 panel, hosted by the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in partnership with Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. 

Ongoing events—especially the COVID-19 pandemic—highlight the need for transformative thinking when it comes to security and solidarity, according to the panel. 

“COVID-19 proves the urgent need for a globalization of solidarity and for greater investments in integral security and new models of global cooperation,” said panelist Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See secretary for relations with states. 

Muslim-Christian Understanding

The globalization of solidarity is also important in Muslim-Christian relations, as highlighted in Georgetown programming on Pope Francis’ recent apostolic visit to Iraq. 

In March 2021, the university hosted a panel discussion exploring the religious and political significance of the historic trip. Panelist Rev. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., editor-in-chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, highlighted key themes in the papal visit. 

“The core of the message that Pope Francis wanted to deliver to the country is to be united: considering religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity which has characterized the Iraqi society for a millennium as a precious resource that requires a healthy pluralism,” explained Spadaro, who also serves on the Georgetown University Board of Directors. 

A later Georgetown event, sponsored by the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, focused on the meeting between Pope Francis and Shia cleric Ayatollah Sistani. As panelist Cardinal Michael L. Fitzgerald, M.Afr., an expert in Muslim-Christian relations, explained, 

The meeting between Pope Francis and Ayatollah Sistani was surely significant, as it showed that the pope is ready and eager to enter into relations with all branches of Islam.

As global society looks toward a future beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgetown research and partnerships to advance ecumenical and interreligious dialogue will remain as critical as ever.