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

Simone Schaupp 'Non scolae, sed .' or from paper to person? Or just: Meeting Leonard Swidler I was studying Catholic Theology and History at the university of Freiburg, Germany. After having heard the history of philosophy from the pre-Socratics to Heidegger for the umpteenth time, brushed the theology of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine and all those other classics, and having had to face sentences like 'we will not cover postmodernism here, since postmodern thought has given up the search for the absolute' in introductory classes to theology, I'd just about given up hope that this department of theology would ever offer me an encounter with contemporary thought. Then - it must have been in 96 or 97 - I read the announcement that the department of fundamental theology (in the German systematic of the discipline they're dealing with the philosophical foundations of theology) was offering a seminar 'pluralism and theology' in the upcoming semester. I was thrilled and signed up. We covered all the classic authors of religious pluralism (which in the German speed of reviewing Anglo-Saxon theology consisted of John Hick and Paul Knitter. Period.) and chance, fate or some well-meaning entity chose me to cover a US-American Catholic theologian by the name of Leonard Swidler in a class presentation. I was immediately intellectually bewitched. A proper, a decent, and honest system of thought to deal with the contemporary challenges of theology! Designed to be of service to people trying to apply it to their thinking and their lives, reconciling this split of modern epistemology and my belief in the existence of a transcendent source of reality. Dialogue, the self-definition of the other, the constant rebinding between my thinking and the thinking of the other/s. ... Maybe my passion shows already: I had found my anchor into Catholic thinking again, I'd almost given it up for good. I decided I wanted to spend more time with the thinking of this professor from Philadelphia and in 1999 wrote my final thesis about his thoughts in comparison to the work of Hick and Knitter. Then, in the year 2000, my intellectual work with the theology of Leonard Swidler had reached its peak and I was moving on to other things, when I decided to use the possibilities the internet offers and contacted him. The man who breathes the word 'dialogue' would surely like to hear about someone else pondering what he had said, even though it only was a little student from Germany. So I decided to contact him and send him my thesis. As all of you who know Leonard Swidler can imagine that this was received with all the curiosity, enthusiasm, and kindness that are part of his personality. Chance or ... then allowed us to meet in Oxford for a conference on religious pluralism. We each found a kindred spirit, across generations and the Atlantic and have been friends ever since. He has become the mentor I had always been looking for: Inspiring through the immense energy and amazing work he is doing and yet never-ending interest in the little things other people are trying to do in their lives. So glad you are here! Simone

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