Engaging in respectful dialogue
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The Council of Trent and your holiday table may not seem like they have much in common. But they do.
The 16th century, when the Council of Trent was held, was a time of expanding worldviews in Europe. The Reformation was dramatically disrupting the status quo, and the Council of Trent was the Catholic Church’s response. It was a time of reflection and action in a fraught society — not unlike the sense of instability we, and our institutions, are experiencing today.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit religious order, wrote a letter (letter writing plays a significant role in the Jesuit tradition, with Ignatius penning more than 7,000 in his lifetime) to his fellow Jesuits who were attending the Council of Trent. Knowing that emotions would be running high, St. Ignatius offered these (slightly edited) words of advice:
- Be slow to speak. And when you do, be deliberate and loving.
- Listen attentively, holding space for silence.
- Seek the truth in what others are saying.
- Engage disagreement with love.
- Allow the conversation the time it needs.
His advice over 500 years ago can serve as a guide for engaging in respectful dialogue today, even when the conversation has the potential to be contentious. Especially if the conversation is a verbal walk through a field of land mines.
Increased societal tensions; news coverage that often reduces pressing, complex issues to soundbites; echo chambers that reinforce existing notions; and disagreements resulting from discordant perspectives and worldviews make civil dialogue challenging.
Cindy Schmersal, EdD, MA’13, vice president of Mission and Ministry, and Sarah Walker, PhD, vice president of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, who recently piloted a campus program titled Ignatian Conversations, believe insights from St. Ignatius may provide some good guidance.
Assume the best in the other … If God loves us profoundly, it’s incumbent on us to love one another as well.
— Cindy Schmersal, EdD, MA’13
Viewed from an Ignatian perspective, love underpins all conversations, both easy and difficult. Seeing the person with whom you are conversing as a child of God and not your opponent goes a long way to ensuring productive dialogue. “Assume the best in the other. We are all God’s beloved,” Schmersal says. “If God loves us profoundly, it’s incumbent on us to love one another as well.”
Easier said than done, you say, when “intolerant” Aunt Ida or “naive” nephew Nick are pushing your buttons over the buttered rolls. Do what Harvard professor and author Arthur Brooks advises in his book Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from a Culture of Contempt — refuse to categorize entire groups as evil or awful or whatever sweeping generalization you want to use because, chances are, someone you love belongs to that demographic. You love your grandpa but disagree with his views on the free market. You adore your daughter but think her political beliefs are ill-formed.
It’s not a zero-sum proposition. We can maintain our differences and simultaneously see our shared values. “If you can walk away and still see the humanity in that individual, that’s a true outcome of respectful dialogue,” Walker says. Plus, she adds, one difficult conversation often segues into additional conversations on different topics, which can lead to new learning.
If you can walk away and still see the humanity in that individual, that’s a true outcome of respectful dialogue.
— Sarah Walker, PhD
Tempering our goals is necessary. Schmersal says it’s important to remember that the point of respectful dialogue is not to win someone over to your point of view or for both parties to completely agree. Rather, it’s to come to a better understanding of each other’s perspectives, to learn more about those with whom we engage, to glean insights into what makes them the people we love.
As difficult as respectful dialogue can be when the subject matter is hot and emotions are high, we need to still have them. “We’re socialized not to have hard conversations,” Walker says, “but how do we learn the skill to talk about difficult topics if we avoid them?”
Approach the conversation with curiosity, she advises. Enter with the mindset that you want to learn, not teach. Then you will spend more time truly listening and not just biding time until you can get your two cents in at the pulpit.
If St. Ignatius could expect this of his Jesuit companions in such a formal, significant event as the Council of Trent, we can certainly follow suit at the family table over holiday meals.
Remember, as St. Ignatius might say: God is in all things, including difficult conversations.
