Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., Fordham’s former vice president for mission and ministry and a scholar of comparative religion and Islamic studies, was installed on Nov. 18 as the second McGinley Professor by Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. After the installation, Father Ryan delivered his inaugural lecture aimed at opening Fordham’s gates to more frequent and fervent interreligious exchange.

Father Ryan examined similarities and differences among the three religions. Christians, he said, more often find expression through creeds or “organized statements” of faith than do Jews and Muslims, who are less centered on theology. But all three religions share a notion of the “bilateral, reciprocal nature of faith,” that consists of a bond between God and his people. This relationship, which he called the “ultimate context of faith,” appears in the Hebrew Bible as covenant, in the New Testament as new covenant and in the Qur’an as mithaq or ahd.

Differences do exist, however. In the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish people keep faith with a faithful and loving God, while in the New Testament the New Covenant with God is established through the fidelity of Jesus Christ.

The Qur’an, Father Ryan said, refers to a “primordial covenant,” where people bear witness to an all-powerful God before their birth. The word “Amin” does not appear in the Qur’an, Father Ryan said, but is uttered in communion at the end of the Surat al-Fatiha, the most frequently recited Muslim prayer, as a mutual pledge of faith between God and humanity.

“Is it too optimistic of me to suggest that what unites not only Jews, Christians and Muslims but all of humanity seeking the meaning of existence is that all of us, obscurely but somehow realistically, have entered into existence or continue to enter into existence responding to the Lordship of God with an enthusiastic, indeed a joyful, ‘Yes, we have born witness’?” said Father Ryan.

“Can we . . . acknowledge our common heritage of covenant with and fidelity to God, and God’s covenant with and fidelity to us, despite our radical differences?”

Father Ryan said he would devote his tenure as McGinley Chair to discovering common ground among the three religious traditions.

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