Blessings from the Pope

After sending Pope John Paul II a copy of Scarboro Missions’ February 1998 interfaith issue, “Catholics and the Interfaith Conversation”, we received the following reply:

The Holy Father has received the kind letter and recent issue of Scarboro Missions which you and Father O’Toole sent to him and he has asked me to thank you. He very much appreciates your thoughtful gesture and gives thanks to God for your service of the Gospel throughout the world.

Invoking upon you and your collaborators a fresh outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, His Holiness cordially imparts his Apostolic Blessing.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Msgr. Pedro López Quintana
Assessor, Secretariat of State
The Vatican

Greetings to Canada’s Hindu community

Last fall Scarboro Missions, in a letter to the Canadian Council of Hindus, extended Diwali greetings to all Hindus in Canada. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is the most important feast in the Hindu calendar.

This interfaith gesture was inspired by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. In 1995 the Council issued a letter to the worldwide Hindu community on the Feast of Diwali. The letter called for closer cooperation between Hindus and Catholics, particularly in promoting religious values.

The interfaith work of Scarboro Missions continues to be inspired by the best-known Hindu of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi.

Scarboro receives Racial Harmony Award

Last year Scarboro Missions’ Interfaith Desk was presented with the Racial Harmony Award by the Community and Race Relations Committee of Toronto East (Scarborough). The award recognizes Scarboro Missions’ efforts to promote harmony among religions, cultures and races through its interfaith work over the last five years.

The Racial Harmony Award was accepted by Fr. Gerald Curry, Editor of Scarboro Missions magazine and founding member of Scarboro’s Interfaith Desk.

During the 1970s Scarboro Missions was active in the struggle against apartheid and distributed an audiovisual presentation, Banking on South Africa, showing the complicity of countries of the North in the system of apartheid.

The Gandhi Series

In the fall of 1995 Scarboro Missions sponsored its first interfaith event. Members of eight world faiths were invited to comment on Gandhian nonviolence from the perspective of their various religions. Mahatma Gandhi has been a key inspiration for the interfaith work of Scarboro Missions. This celebrated Hindu saint used the philosophy of nonviolence to promote interracial, intercultural and interreligious cooperation. In the end he was assassinated by a Hindu extremist protesting Gandhi’s persistent outreach to India’s Muslim minority. Articles on Gandhi and his thoughts on nonviolence and on mission appeared in the April 1995 and April 1996 editions of Scarboro Missions magazine.

Scarboro Missions has invited representatives from religions to speak about the place of nonviolence in their faith traditions. These interfaith seminars have been entitled "The Gandhi Series".