Gini Nelson’s Engaging Conflicts

Welcome to a new blog, Science and Religion, at DiscoverMagazine.com. Father Holleran has, to me, an interesting background and the right approach to these discussions, some of which he states in his inaugural post :

The second caution has to do with what we mean by “religion.” As a Roman Catholic priest, I obviously come to the conversation with my formation in the wondrously rich intellectual tradition of Catholicism. I do not, however, have a formal theological degree. What I do have is Jesuit training, not only from high school (Regis) and college (Fordham), but also as a Jesuit myself for five years. Perhaps more importantly, I have over twenty years’ experience as a hermit contemplative monk in the Carthusian Order. (The life of the Grande Chartreuse, where I lived for seven years, is the subject of the recent documentary Into Great Silence [click here to see the New Yorker’s review and click here to hear Father Holleran talk about the film]. While there I was in charge of the production of our liqueur—Chartreuse—a job that surely mingles not only herbal ingredients but also art and science!) For this reason, I do not consider my stance to be either conservative or liberal but contemplative. By this I mean an attitude that shuns ideology and rests in the grateful and often scary appreciation of the real as it reveals itself in all its splendor. For this reason, too, I have an immense respect for other religions and their traditions, and look forward to having blog participants enlarge the discourse with insights from their own spiritual backgrounds. I myself have training in yoga and more especially in Zen Buddhism, and hope to be able to offer for your consideration some contributions from these venerable worldviews.

Perhaps a better way of saying this is that I have an enormous respect for the often tortuous and frequently exciting personal journey of each individual in sincerity and freedom.