Celebrating Leonard Swidler and Arlene Anderson Swidler at Age 75

Rebecca Alpert
Jim Biechler
Marcus Braybrooke
Ellen T. Charry
Leobard D'Souza
David Efroymson
Gabriele Feyler
Stefan Feyler
Eugene Fisher
Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer
Krystina Gorniak-Kocikowska
Yitz Greenberg
Wan-Li Ho
Sanaullah Kirmani
Reinhard Kirste
Hans Küng
Lihua Liu
Jack Malinowski
Patricia Martinez
Sergio Mazza
Alan Mittleman
Ronald Modras
Paul Mojzes
Malcolm Nazareth
Angelika Quade
Ida Raming
Virginia Kaib Ratigan
John Sahadat
Simone Schaupp
Ingrid Shafer
Shu-hsien Liu
Thomas Thompson
Catherine Berry Stidsen

Leobard D'Souza, Archbishop Emeritus of Nagpur, India

The first and actually the only time I met Leonard Swidler personally was the summer of 1968 when I was visiting and staying with the Norbertines in South Philadelphia. I went to the offices of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies at Temple University to thank Dr. Swidler for sending to my library at Bishop's House in Jabalpur, India, the books which they were deciding not to review in JES. It fascinated me then and even now that many of these books were by Indian authors and were too expensive for us to purchase in our own country.

Leonard took me to lunch at the faculty club and we talked about a great many things, not least of which were our Norbertine connections. I had, in fact, just come from DePere, Wisconsin, where he had once studied. I was there to ordain a priest for the diocese of Jabalpur. I, myself, had been trained by Dutch Norbertines at St. Aloysius School in Jabalpur, a boarding student from the age of eight after the death of my father. Eventually I opted for the diocesan priesthood as did another of my classmates. A third joined the Norbertines as did many of the graduates of St. Aloysius. Our bishop during my school days was a Dutch Norbertine, all six feet four inches of him, Bishop Conrad Dubbelman.

Above all on that visit I remember Leonard's enthusiasm. Vatican Council II was for him all that he was hoping for in terms of a renewed Catholicism. Friends and colleagues of his tell me that that enthusiasm has not diminished. He was especially excited in 1968 about the potential of the Department of Religious Studies at Temple whose programmes were permitting faculty and students to interact with each other in ways that he had only dreamed about before that. Inter-religious and inter-ideological dialogues were a reality in that setting. He saw it as the future of any and every authentic dialogue and of an unparalleled world unity.

I remember after lunch deciding to walk along Broad Street to the centre city of Philadelphia, and my brown face and Roman collar attracting some interesting attention as I did that. I marveled at Temple's setting in the heart of this city and in one of its most depressed areas. Later in the visit I was able to meet some of the graduate students in Leonard's department and to preside at a Eucharist at St. Rose of Lima, an amazing magnet church in those days for progressive Catholics, including the Swidlers and many of the Catholic graduate students at Temple. It took me almost a half day to come down from that special mountaintop adventure.

I have used Leonard's publications over the years. To name just a few, I use Jesus Was a Feminist, in its original and a simplified version which I have taken the liberty of making, especially with young sisters in formation, and sometimes those who are not so young. The conditions which the United States papers have reported of women religious in developing countries is, unfortunately, by and large true. I do what I can, whenever I can, to teach sisters what they are entitled to before God and before man, literally, and also in terms of each other. I return again and again to Yeshua: a Model for Moderns. It is almost bedside reading. But most of all, I am impressed and grateful for Leonard's work connected with dialogue. The Dialogue Decalogue is invaluable to me because in the context of India proclamation of the Good News IS dialogue! Not all of our bishops get that nor believe it but most of our theologians do. And many of them, expatriates and indigenous, have paid and are paying a high price for that.

Leonard's work and that of his colleague Father Hans Küng, especially in what they have produced as a result of the 1993 World Parliament of Religions, continues to be of special help and encouragement to me personally and to others at St. Charles Seminary in Nagpur where I make my home in my retirement. As a teacher of Church history, Indian Church history, and especially in a pastoral workshop that I conduct for deacons, I am able to make great use of Leonard's insights. I am also delighted that Leonard's office, through the kindness of Nancy Krody, once again sends me books, this time for the new library at the seminary. Among those gifts are leather bound volumes of the first twenty-five years of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies.

This kind of resource is unknown in my country except perhaps in Delhi and Bangalore and to now have it in Central India is a major boon for us. We have in fact located these materials in a special section called "The Arlene and Leonard Swidler Library of Ecumenical Studies", to thank them for this amazing gift. There are seven religious communities of men that use this seminary, the Norbertines' Indian province among them, and a large number of candidates for diocesan priesthood study there as well. An increasing number of women religious are attending the seminary working toward a diploma in theology. The JES gifts have the potential for being far-reaching in my country and wherever these students will eventually serve.

I must admit to being a socialist at heart but I do ponder seriously Leonard's work on globalisation and his efforts to achieve a global ethic. I have copies of these and of the work he has done toward a Constitution for the Church in terms of his work with the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church. I chuckled over his reported suggestion that the pope, the Dalai Lama, the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, the head imam of the University of Cairo, and God only know what Hindu, ought to be sent to outer space by NASA and not allowed to return to earth until they had worked out a global ethic! Myth or reality, it is a special insight. And would that I could help with his reputed great desire to have his books condemned so that they might sell better than they have! I am delighted that Dr. Ingrid Shafer is now making available to us online Leonard's books which are no longer in print. Again, for a situation like ours in India, access of this sort to these materials is invaluable. I have never had the privilege of meeting Arlene Swidler although I believe that without her the Journal of Ecumenical Studies would not have become a reality. People who know her tell me that it is not just that "behind every good man there is a good woman" but that in her case the adage needs to be amended to also state that "before every good man there is a good woman". I know that even in these trying days of her illness she continues to be a special gift to Dr. Swidler. I wish both the Swidlers well on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversaries of their births. I thank God for the gifts they have been and I hope will continue to be to me personally and to the Church at large, especially in Mother India.

Leobard D'Souza, Archbishop Emeritus of Nagpur, India