98 actas del xii congreso católicos y vida pública their own religious tradition share their spiritual richness. And this happens with our neighbors, with our students in a university setting, actually the university is a locus, a place where all this happens because students live on campus and the dialogue of life can happen very easily. Students participate in study abroad or experiential learning, so there is a togetherness there that stimulates navigating this delicate balance. The church has provided us some tools to reconcile this, and Pope Paul VI early recognized the inherent risk of dialogue but deem to embrace it. Pope Paul VI, he had a crucial role in the second council and he understood this contradictory matter and said, “We will continue with the interreligious dialogue, there is no stopping it”. In his encyclical Ecclesiam suam he described the church as engaged in conversation emphasizing the need for Christians to embody humility, that is the virtue of humility that is now added to the interreligious dialogue, mirroring Christ’s own humility and acceptance of death on the cross. So there is humility here, but at the same time, a degree of imitation or emulating Christ even in interreligious dialogue. Pope Paul VI articulated essential attitudes. We are now talking about attitudes for fruitful interreligious dialogue advocating for an approach grounded in dialogue rather than seeking theocratic dominance over the contemporary world that means: I possess everything in my religion; I’m always right, you are wrong. That attitude is not for dialogue. You can never open a dialogue with a person or a student or with a colleague that is not catholic if you go with that attitude. Now this dialogue that Paul VI refers to, should possess four distinct qualities or characteristics besides humility and these are clarity, meekness, confidence, and the prudence of a teacher or pedagogical prudence, he says. It’s pretty wonderful and I wish I had more time to comment on this but I’m just commenting very briefly. Clarity in interreligious dialogue is extremely important, every angle of one’s language should be reviewed and also you have to make a choice of the language so as not to offend the person that you are dialoguing with, and also a sense of meekness. Dialogue actually is not proud, it is not bitter, it is not offensive, it is not authoritative, but always you need to have the openness of mind, the flexibility, that love that we talked a lot in this conference. One should have confidence, not only in the power of one’s word, but also in an attitude of welcoming the trust of the converser. Trust promotes confidence and friendship and
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