“We’re better together than apart.”
This was the conviction Fr. Adrian Martens recalled from the early days of the Calgary Interfaith Council. We spoke to Fr. Martens, a Catholic priest and longtime participant in Calgary’s interfaith community, about the origins of CIC as well as his current work developing a world religions textbook. Throughout our conversation, Fr. Martens returned to the importance of encountering other faiths through relationships and lived experience.
Fr. Martens recalled that, before CIC, Calgary already had various groups fostering dialogue between particular religious communities. However, as Calgary become a more religiously diverse city, he and other faith leaders saw the need for a multilateral faith organization to bring communities of all faiths together. Fr. Martens remembered Rabbi Shaul Osadchey as a driving force behind this effort. His own response, he joked, was essentially, “Good job! You got the Catholic Church’s stamp on it. Go for it.”
What Fr. Martens remembers most proudly from CIC’s beginnings is “how many people at the beginning sort of stepped up and said, ‘Let’s make this happen.’” Bringing these communities together opened lines of communication that had not previously existed across such a broad collection of faiths.
That experience has also influenced Fr. Martens personally. He described developing a greater willingness to speak up on behalf of other faiths when he hears them being misrepresented or maligned. “I want to experience your religion,” he explained. “I want to eat the food, and I want to go to the place, and I want to actually hear what you’re thinking.” For Fr. Martens knowledge must result from encounters and dialogues and not be merely limited to propositions on a page.
This same philosophy is informing a new world religions textbook which Fr. Martin is developing alongside a scholar in East Asian studies and a Buddhist priest. The project seeks to present religions through their own descriptions of their beliefs and, especially, through the lived experiences of the people who practise them. Fr. Martens hopes students will encounter religious communities on their own terms instead of viewing them from an external and distant perspective.
His years with CIC have become an important resource for this work. “This document will be heavily influenced by CIC,” he told us. Fr. Martens recalled memories of sharing a Turkish meal while discussing Sufism and being welcomed into the homes and spaces of other religious communities. He recalled being invited to show a film about Pope Francis at a Calgary Mosque. “Through this textbook, I want to be able to return that favour,” he explained. “You can’t love someone unless you know them.” He hopes to eventually provide an opportunity for CIC members to engage with the textbook, providing “honest engagement and feedback.”
It is this desire to know others that Fr. Martens hopes CIC can continue to foster throughout Calgary and beyond. “We won’t be able to change this world unless we know each other,” he told us. For Fr. Martens, interfaith dialogue begins with being willing to encounter another person as a neighbour rather than an abstraction. Interfaith work requires us to enter their spaces, hear their perspectives, and, as he put it, be “a guest” and “a listener.”
