How Interreligious Dialogue Can Expand and Challenge Your Faith – Judith Pajo

Episode 96.   

Have you lived in more than one country? Do you participate in interreligious dialogue or are you interested in it? Have you studied religion or theology? Not very many people can say yes to all of these questions. But my guest, Judith Pajo can. Born in Germany, she has nevertheless lived many years both there and in the U.S., shuttling back and forth since childhood. Raised Catholic, she has also studied theology and cultural anthropology in both countries. Judith now conducts interreligious research at Pace University in New York. With these elements as our focus, Judith and I explored her peripatetic upbringing, her current scholarship on interreligious and intra-religious dialogue, and the impact of that exploration on her Catholic faith. 

While this conversation was recorded weeks ago, the recent death of Pope Francis makes it particularly timely. 

Highlights: 

• Diverse experiences of Catholicism.
• The impact of mobility on religious experience.
• Sound and light over words and other distractions. 
• Language diversity in Catholic practice.
• Impact of October 7th attack on interfaith dialogue.
• Researcher risks and faith struggles.
• How interfaith dialogue reshapes religions.
• Research outcomes and future directions.

Bio:  

Judith Pajo, PhD, grew up in both Germany and the United States. She studied Catholic theology and cultural anthropology on both sides of the Atlantic and has been teaching at Pace University in New York City for over fifteen years, with shorter stints at NYU and Fordham. Her new research on interfaith dialogue among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Europe and North America, conceived a little over a year ago, is transforming her Catholic faith as she integrates more elements from the other Abrahamic religions into her practice. She is also guiding undergraduate students in conducting interviews with individuals from diverse faith traditions. The research group itself is an interfaith initiative; no two members share the same faith, but they are discovering that they have much in common. She is currently working on an article about cultural transgressions in interfaith work. What does forgiveness look like in practice? How do we continue interfaith dialogue? Judith lives in Queens, NY. 

References:

• Church of the Reconciliation, Berlin
• Second Vatican Council

Suggested episode on Living Our Beliefs:

• Mookie Manalili episode – Catholic life

Social Media and other links for Judith:  

• Profile at Pace University 
• LinkedIn – Judith Pajo

Transcript on Buzzsprout

Social Media and other links for Méli:

• Website – the Talking with God Project
• Meli’s email
• LinkedIn – Meli Solomon
• Facebook – Meli Solomon

Follow the podcast!

The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project.

Transcript

Judith Pajo transcript 

How Interreligious Dialogue Can Expand and Challenge Your Faith

Méli [00:00:05]:

Hello, and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Méli Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more, check out the link in the show notes. 

Have you lived in more than one country? Do you participate in inter religious dialogue or are you interested in it? Have you studied religion or theology? Not very many people can say yes to all of these questions. But my guest today, Judith Pajo, can. Born in Germany, she has nevertheless lived many years both there and in the US, shuttling back and forth since childhood. Raised Catholic, she has also studied theology and cultural anthropology in both countries. Judith now conducts interreligious research at Pace University in New York. With these elements as our focus, Judith and I explored her peripatetic upbringing, her current scholarship on interreligious and intrareligious dialogue, and the impact of that exploration on her Catholic faith. While this conversation was recorded weeks ago, the recent death of Pope Francis makes it particularly timely. If you'd like to hear about another Catholic who has lived in multiple countries, check out my conversation with Mookie Manalili. A link is in the show notes. And now, let's turn to our conversation.

Méli [00:02:01]:

Hello, Judith. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I'm really pleased to have you on today.

Judith Pajo [00:02:06]:

Thank you, Méli. Thank you for inviting me.

Méli [00:02:09]:

So we're here to talk about your experience as a Catholic and interreligious research, how these two things impact each other and intersect. I would like to just start with hearing a little more about your religious upbringing.

Judith Pajo [00:02:31]:

Well, first of all, I was raised Catholic, you know, baptized Catholics, did all the sacraments that you go through as you grow up. I would call it the opposite of inter religious. I think it was very mono religious, if you will. It was like all Catholic all around, maybe with some of the aunts and uncles who married, maybe a little bit of Protestantism mixed in. But, you know, in terms of other religions, Protestantism alongside Catholicism was pretty much as much variety as I experienced. And this was the case in both countries that I grew up with. I moved, back and forth a lot between, Germany and The United States. So I have this multinational upbringing.

Judith Pajo [00:03:13]:

And I experienced Catholicism on both sides of the Atlantic. I've also have the experience of living in small towns, big cities, different states. And so I would say I've experienced a lot of variety of Catholicism. Of course, there's something central about the mass that is being held on Sunday that, you know, the central sacrament of the Eucharist, that's the same everywhere. But a lot of other things differ. I grew up in that sense with even though I call it a mono-religious experience, I think there was tremendous variety across languages that were spoken, you know, cultural differences, ethnic differences, differences in music, differences in, you know, what saints you put, you know, the statues that you can find in the in the houses of worship. So there was a lot of variety there, which could sometimes even be a dizzying variety of Catholicism.

Méli [00:04:15]:

Yeah. Thanks. And just to clarify, as I understand, you were born and brought up in Germany and then came to The US at some point later. Is that is that correct?

Judith Pajo [00:04:27]:

I I was born in Germany. Yes. But I actually, was brought back and forth, between The US and Germany, several times starting at the age of four. So I I would say I grew up simultaneously in both. By the time I was 18, 19, graduating from high school, I I I think I got into the habit so much of being this transatlantic person, that I I continued the tradition. So So, you know, I started studying, at German universities. I I entered into, Catholic theology for my first degree. But then obviously I I felt like I needed to go to America to do my study abroad, to get a taste of theology and religious studies in the US.

Judith Pajo [00:05:09]:

Then I went back to Germany, for finishing up the degree. Then I decided to go into anthropology, cultural anthropology. That I did intern, in the US. But then I had to do my fieldwork in Germany. So I think, I I, yeah, I just I just keep going back and forth between the two. And now it's voluntary, obviously. But in the childhood, it was, just family, tradition.

Méli [00:05:37]:

Is one of your parents German and the other American? Or was it just was really about work?

Judith Pajo [00:05:43]:

It was really about work. Yeah. Monolinguistic, monocultural, mono mono German. I don't know how what you wanna call that.

Méli [00:05:50]:

Already, you've painted, I think, a fairly unusual picture. You know, outside of kids who are army brats or, their parents work for an embassy, this is a particular experience. And it's interesting to consider this balance, I might say, between a very solid monoculture, as you say, of Catholicism but then the tremendous variety of villages and cities and US and Germany and even, I imagine, different parts of each country and obviously different parishes. When you reflect on all of those different parish experiences, those different service experiences, do some come forward as preferable, as richer spiritually, or where you grew more or felt more at home, somehow more positive?

Judith Pajo [00:06:55]:

That's a very difficult question to answer. I'm because the feeling at home is very difficult for somebody who moves around a lot. I almost feel like the home is always that which I don't have. It's sort of a little bit of the nostalgia for the other kind that you just left behind. So there's sort of a longing for for what you had kind of grown into, but you don't know that it was home until you left and try to make a new home, which doesn't feel like home when you just started out again. So in terms of religion, I feel there's always a tremendous awareness whenever I'm, let's say worshiping of like, oh, it was different somewhere else. I always focus on the difference of the other place more than I do at what's happening in front of me right now. I think there's a longing to feel at home, but it sort of escapes most of the time.

Méli [00:07:50]:

Yeah. Interesting point that what you no longer have feels more at home than where you actually are at the moment.

Judith Pajo [00:07:58]:

Yes. I mean, if if you're sitting in a particular church, maybe you don't appreciate all of its details, then you go somewhere else. And maybe it's a dark church and you feel like, oh, the other one had more windows. It was more light. Or one church has like a lot of cluttered, what I would call cluttered side altars with too many statues to even figure out who's who and what's what. And then you appreciate that a different one maybe just had one or even none such. All the materiality, it obviously differs between different churches. And I feel like you focus or I have focused always on what was lost when I went to another place that was sort of disorienting.

Judith Pajo [00:08:39]:

So not being for a long time in a particular place, it does make it more difficult I think to concentrate. And I think from the beginning, just because of moving around a lot, I've just sort of gotten into this habit of comparing constantly the thousands and thousands of varieties of Catholicism, around me.

Méli [00:09:03]:

I think on the one hand, this is quite natural to compare. But I'm struck by your response to this tremendous variety of experience that even now as an adult, where as I understand from your bio, you've been working at Pace University for fifteen years. That is a lot of years of stability. Okay? So there were a few years where you were at NYU or elsewhere. But I'm struck that even now, this sense of I've been in all all of these different places, and I'm constantly longing for what I had somewhere else. So I wonder at this point, if you could pick, you know, this color, that sanctuary, that busyness of of statuary, what would that look like?

Judith Pajo [00:10:04]:

I think it increasingly looks like closing your eyes and almost closing your ears to the world around. I don't think I could build my own sanctuary. I think I've seen so many different variations that, like I said, I'm distracted by them. I'm distracted by all of them. And it increasingly becomes trying to take away what's not necessary and sort of just create a space where you can actually reflect and talk with God. I appreciate that different communities have built things that help them. But maybe those communities that are more localized don't appreciate what it does to people who move around between them and that none of them are perfect. Lately, I'm just entering any space, but then just closing the eyes and trying to, even not not really listen because the prayers, they they differ too.

Judith Pajo [00:11:03]:

And, I mean, sometimes I feel like I'm having my tower of bubble moments where it's just like so many different languages spoken and prayers being said and rituals being held. And it just it's this dizzying variety. I just have to struggle with this. So I I'm struggling with it.

Méli [00:11:22]:

That's fine. You know, the struggle is is part of the experience as well. And actually, I think it's it's helpful for me and and hopefully for the audience as well is to actually hear, okay, this is a big process. And process, if we're honest about it, involves confusion and change. And I think that really gets us closer to honesty about spiritual experience than the clean box with the neat bow. Before we go on to language and your research and all that, one more comment about environment. When you talk about really what's best is closing your eyes and even your ears is you sound like being in a Quaker meeting house would be nice, where it's quiet and people are only speaking when they feel moved. That's one idea.

Méli [00:12:21]:

Curious if you've ever visited one of those services. And the second is you've brought to mind two Christian sanctuaries that I've been in in Germany that were very spare, architecturally spare and very moving. One was on the pedestrian way in Dresden, and the other was the Church of the Reconciliation in Berlin that was right on the wall by Bernauer Ostrasen. I don't know if you've been in either of those spaces or been in similar spaces where it's just very spare, hardly any ornamentation, a cross, maybe not even a crucifix, wood benches, white walls. You know, even I, as a Jew, have found both of those spaces very moving.

Judith Pajo [00:13:22]:

I've not visited any of these places, that you're mentioning, including, the Quaker. But what you say does remind me that I I think I did grow up with one particular cathedral that was spare. It was in the Roman architectural style of the cathedral in Speyer. It's like a thousand years old, you know, red sandstone on the outside and just very high ceilings and these windows that let in the light. Something very impressive on the inside is like this organ. It's just amazing to listen to. I might have learned going to that space, you know, about the value of sound, you know, musical sound and the light that comes through the windows and not to pay too much attention to much else. Because in that church, that particular cathedral, there also isn't that much else to get distracted from.

Judith Pajo [00:14:16]:

You know, it's just a lot of red sandstone all around. To me it's about the lights and the sound. That's what I increasingly focus on when I go to different houses of worship is where's the light coming from? That's always my first question. And I think the light means more and more to me because rather than the objects that people put in there, the lights going back to the beginning of, Genesis, God created light. I think that was the first thing that was created. How did he even make the first day? I mean, to create light. So that's what I think all the religious spaces that I'm entering, they more or less achieve that capturing of light somehow. And so that regardless of all the other rituals and objects, you know, the light seems to be something common to them all.

Judith Pajo [00:15:02]:

And so that that's what I really increasingly find helpful to enter, into into prayer and meditation.

Méli [00:15:12]:

Yeah. It's so interesting, this this last, note you've made, Judith, because when you mention the beginning of Genesis and you talk about light, you've also talked about the value of sound. Right? All of these things are about opposites and separation. Right? What God was doing in all that first week was making a demarcation between light and darkness, between water and earth, between chaos and not chaos. And I'd say the same for sound. You have the organ or the singing and the talking versus the quietude, the silence. And those distinctions, those demarcations and separations are so important to our experience, certainly in the religious experience. If it's sound all of the time, it's going to wear you out.

Méli [00:16:15]:

Right. And if it's silence all of the time, then also I think you'd be missing something. So it's that contrast. And, and in a way that seems to fit very well with what you were saying earlier about all of these different experiences. And you're constantly comparing while I'm here now, and I was there and experiences and you're constantly comparing, well, I'm here now and I was there and it's darker here and it that actually now feels more more of a piece to me. What do you think?

Judith Pajo [00:16:42]:

You're actually helping me through this conversation to to think my struggle is probably to try to go back towards creation and, you know, to to kind of roll back all the centuries, and millennia of people creating the many different religious traditions. Because if if I'm trying to look for a commonality between all these places that I visit, you know, what's common to them? And if we peel back all the layers, I mean, yeah, we do get to the beginning of Genesis. We do get to like the start of the world and creation. And maybe, maybe I'm not advanced enough to take in everything else that happened after, but I'm trying to retrace, you know, the dimensions of the earth. And yeah, what about earth? What about the heavens? What about the light sound? We do need to communicate with each other the language and that's one of the frustrations I have with the experience of Catholicism is just this inability to have some sort of common language. So it's not just about me moving from Germany to America and back again and growing up with English and German and switching back and forth. But it's also, you know, in America because I happen to live in Queens, which is home to, people from so many different countries in the world. 200 different languages are being spoken in Queens.

Judith Pajo [00:17:59]:

So it's probably the most diverse place on earth in terms of linguistic variety. And if you go into any Catholic church in Queens, they usually offer services in multiple languages. So, you know, on Sunday you can choose. If you want to go at 9AM at English, ten thirty Spanish, you can also catch a Portuguese mass or, you know, the Filipino community will will have it in Tagalog. When there's high holidays, you'll have very long masses because then the petitions are being spoken in multiple different languages, certain segments. Readings might be done in both languages. So you can have bilingual masses and multilingual masses. And we're just, you know, this variety of of so much language.

Judith Pajo [00:18:42]:

The struggle we have in the Catholic church perhaps is for good reasons, probably, Latin was no longer the official language of the mass after second Vatican council. And so now the vernacular of any given place, you know, is is elevated. It's holy enough to to speak your prayers and sing your songs. But when you move between places, you know, I look at other religions outside of Christianity. You have people praying and and singing in Hebrew or praying and singing in Arabic. We don't have that Latin anymore. And I'm not I'm not saying go back to it. But I'm just saying the variety of languages that we now have offered side by side, it can lead to a feeling of division, when we could have a little more unity.

Judith Pajo [00:19:32]:

Because, you know, you have people living face to face now in in Queens. They're in the neighborhoods. They belong to the same parish, but they're not going to the same mass because we're offering masses in so many different languages. So now you're segmenting by culture, by ethnic origin, and people take turns doing things in the parish. It doesn't really feel like you're bringing everybody together at the same time. So I feel like this unity is somehow lost. That that might be a specifically Catholic problem. I'm not sure with with, you know, with the languages.

Méli [00:20:08]:

Well, I I don't have the answer to that question, but I think you've raised a relevant and kind of unanswerable question, which is a challenge. There is no perfect system. You rightly pointed out that before Vatican II in the mid-sixties, Catholic services were in Latin. Most Jewish services, conservative, Orthodox, not reform or renewal, but lots of them are in Hebrew with, I'd say, 10% and whatever the vernacular is. Muslim services are in Arabic. So there is that unity. You can go to those services anywhere in the world and you'll have pretty similar experience in synagogues. You will hear different tunes for the same prayers.

Méli [00:20:56]:

So it's not absolutely the same. The flip side of using a holy language is the question of, well, do the people in the pews actually understand what's being said? Right? From what I've heard among Catholics, one of the benefits of Vatican II was that people then understood the service because most people didn't understand Latin. It was beautiful. It was what the service was. So I think that's the question. Do you use the holy language and everywhere in the world is using the same language? Or do you use the vernacular where the people in the pews are actually understanding what's being said?

Judith Pajo [00:21:36]:

Even in Queens, when you have, some of the high holidays, there will be Latin songs that are included. And that's the one time when you can actually hear everybody singing together because I guess everybody feels equidistant from Latin because it's nobody's vernacular For

Méli [00:22:06]:

For many Jews, it's it's a certain feel. Whether you understand what's being said in Hebrew or not, it's a certain feel that it colors the service in mostly a really beautiful way. I've interviewed, for instance, reformed Jews who don't know Hebrew, who are attending services with a lot of Hebrew, who have said to me, I actually don't wanna know what's being said. It's beautiful just the sound of it.

Judith Pajo [00:22:31]:

That's why I said earlier, like, the the maybe the sounds without text or, I don't know, prayer without words, if there is such a thing. It it goes more inward, I think. Like, more the feeling rather than giving words to it. Because even the even the words of the prayers can be problematic when you move around between religions and between faith traditions. And then being more critical, I guess, of like, why why why do we pray this way? And what do these words really mean? And do I actually agree with them? So there's a lot of changes one might experience through a lifetime that sometimes really yeah. That's why I value the basics of sound and light. So those remain. Those are those are stable for me.

Judith Pajo [00:23:15]:

Those are those are the questions.

Méli [00:23:16]:

Yeah. Yeah. You're you've been peeling back. I see it as quite a positive thing. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, so on this idea of variety, lots of things, let's turn to your research. Can you say just kind of briefly what's the focus of your research, in terms of inter religious beliefs or practice? What are you looking at?

Judith Pajo [00:23:42]:

So I started this project a little over a year ago because I felt that I, you know, as an anthropologist, I should probably turn to the study of religion, which I had sort of left out of all of my research in the last twenty years. And I looking back, I really don't know why. But it just hit me that I should probably do something on religion. And then it, quickly determined that the interfaith work that people are doing in North America and also all across Europe, which is sort of that Transatlantic space that I grew up in and that I'm interested in researching and understanding better. You have multiple religions existing side by side, in in in all that Transatlantic or North Atlantic space. And I'm I'm really interested in the kinds of conversations that people have across religious boundaries. And these religious boundaries, they can be, you know, let's say between, Jews and Muslims and Christians. I mean, there's there's some borders, I guess, between these different faith traditions.

Judith Pajo [00:24:47]:

But even within each of these religions, we spoke about variation before. That's really built into my research project because I'm very appreciative of the many, many different varieties of Judaism, varieties of Christianity, and varieties of Islam. And I'm I'm really interested in the kinds of conversations people have across these religious boundaries. I'm curious whether the dynamics that are unfolding in North America are similar or different from what's happening in Europe. You know, since I'm an anthropologist, it all starts out with people. Like, who are the actual people who are, on the one hand, religious in a particular tradition, but to what extent are they talking with people of other traditions? And what what does that dialogue look like? From the outset, I really thought of my research project as the the opposite of studying conversion. Because in conversion, you're really taking a person who might have grown up with one religion and they're moving over to the other side. Right? The analogy would be when you're moving from one country to another, you might migrate.

Judith Pajo [00:25:56]:

In this day and age, people do also move back and forth. Right? They travel back and forth between countries. And I'm wondering who are the people who might be traveling back and forth between religions. Is it possible to have meaningful dialogue with people in other religions without converting, without having to just give up the country or the religion where you came from and step into this new one? Is it possible to remain in your religion and yet have meaningful dialogue with others? Since I've limited myself mostly to the Abrahamic religions in terms of, you know, the depth research that I'm doing. And so I'm, yeah, I'm interested in how they how they actually are able to talk about those things that are in common. And and and what kinds of conflicts arise when differences are discovered? That's what I'm interested in studying, interreligious dialogue as it's as it's unfolding today.

Méli [00:26:58]:

It sounds like an aspect is also intra religion. You were talking about boundaries, you know, within within religions. Is that correct? Or did I misunderstand?

Judith Pajo [00:27:08]:

No. That's totally correct. Yes. Because starting out with Christianity, I I mentioned, how from the start I was, you know, experiencing Catholicism and Protestantism, you know, with, like, every every village in Southern Germany, you know, would have a you know, if it's a small village, it just has, like, two churches, basically. You know, there might be, you know, an old and big one that's Catholic, if that's the majority, and then a small and more modern building for the Protestants. And in the next village over, it might be the other way around. But basically, you're experiencing the, ecumenical dialogue on the village level happens to be mostly a Protestant Catholic. If you move to the cities, that extends out to interreligious dialogue working together, between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. And so increasingly with my research now, I'm I'm interested in the level of the city. The scale gets bigger and bigger, but it's that same dynamic that I experienced before. I'm just interested in this, interreligious dialogue at all levels.

Méli [00:28:19]:

Do you have initial conclusions or thoughts from, what, about a year of research?

Judith Pajo [00:28:29]:

Well, based on the 70 people that are seven yeah. Over 70 people that I interviewed so far, the most striking thing that I encountered was that people were speaking about interreligious dialogue that had happened for many years, but that may have been interrupted or that was interrupted, by the events of October 7. So my one of my first research questions that I'm working on now is what did October 7 do to those dialogues? Some of them were interrupted and they remain interrupted. Other dialogues are restarting. And I'm trying in real time to study how people are dealing with this conflict. How are they trying to achieve understanding across religious boundaries when a difficult situation like October 7 arises. And it's it's not the first time in history, you know, we just if you go back to 09:11, there have been other events that have an impact on interreligious dialogue. And I'm just spending a lot of time with people who are involved in interfaith work. And I'm trying to see how that that is navigated, how they interact with each other, and how how some of the cultural norms that guide how we talk with each other, how are they informed by religious ideas? It's it's it's an area of interest that I'm pursuing right now.

Méli [00:29:57]:

Yeah. Interesting. And it totally makes sense. But just to confirm, you are speaking with people in The US and Europe. You are not interviewing people who live in Israel Palestine.

Judith Pajo [00:30:10]:

I've restricted it to Europe and North America because I was thinking of NATO. I was thinking of unity and division in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Maybe because I'm an anthropologist and we're thinking about nation states and communities at the national level on the one hand. And then I'm trying to see how religion really crosscuts against these national boundaries. And that's why I was thinking of unity and division in religions that crosscuts the national unity or divisions. So the the overarching question for me is probably one of unity and division. And so I I'm focused in on the Abrahamic religions mostly because the question of unity and division there is also very striking to me because we believe in one God. And most of the peoples I people I interview believe that that one God is also the same god.

Judith Pajo [00:31:11]:

I can't say that everybody I interview agrees. But then that begs the question of division. How did we ever get to be worshiping in so many different ways? And even having different articles of faith, different doctrines, different rituals. My job as a cultural anthropologist is to look at how that variety is being lived today and how people cope with this variety. So, you know, what I mentioned earlier about my own personal upbringing, it really deeply informs my research project. It's just a very personal question that I'm now pursuing with, you know, dozens of interviews with people, to see how that variety is experienced. If if there were no conflict, I don't think I would need this project. But I think there there are conflicts that we didn't ask for, but that we we have to deal with.

Judith Pajo [00:32:07]:

And so I'm I'm I'm interested in what the human response is. How are how are humans navigating these conflicts? What are the responses of local communities? We want more dialogue. And that's that's another way of thinking about this project. I feel when dialogue is interrupted and we talk less with each other, that's a problem because then we understand each other less. We'll have more misconceptions. That can't be the way to go. So the dialogue has to continue, and that's what I'm invested in. That that's why the big project is called interreligious dialogue because I I wanna know who who's engaging in it. And if it's threatened, I wanna help as an anthropologist in understanding why that dialogue might be difficult sometimes and try and help us to come to terms with how we could actually carry on that dialogue.

Méli [00:33:05]:

Yeah. And as you're describing the interest in interruption and how we carry on, the other thing that comes to mind is is COVID. You know, how how years of COVID experience seriously interrupted community practice and people's connections. Even within a a church or synagogue environment, those threads were either cut or we had to really work hard to maintain them and reach out to usually the older folks who lived alone and were quite vulnerable, had a hard time getting their groceries and all. I know my synagogue set up all kinds of, you know, bringing meals. I did shopping for a couple. And, you know, all of this sort of thing happened as well, which in a way strengthened connections with the focus of October 7. It sounds like you're hearing interruptions of dialogue, some dialogue happening again. Have you seen any positive come out of the disruption in terms of this interreligious dialogue?

Judith Pajo [00:34:33]:

I always look for the positive, so I I always find it. Even going back to the COVID that you mentioned a moment ago, even that I thought was very positive in terms of fostering inter religious understanding. Because even though the face-to-face communities were interrupted, disrupted, you couldn't, you know, go attend regular services anymore. There were all these restrictions and rules and houses of worship were closed. But by being able to go online, not only could you now follow the streaming services of your own local parish, but you could follow the streaming services of any parish anywhere in the world. Right? And I'm sure a lot of people experimented with that. And it also didn't take me long to start looking at streaming services of religions outside of my Catholic, you know, environment. And so I I don't even know if I would have thought of the research experiment if if it hadn't been for the COVID interruption.

Judith Pajo [00:35:35]:

So I see it as positive because we we were able to experience things that maybe maybe one doesn't have the courage in everyday life to just walk into a completely strange house of worship. So many potential rules that go through your mind of what the correct behavior would be. Those were barriers. And so by by taking a step into looking in, the streaming services, it it broke down some of those barriers. You you get more familiar. You have, like, some visuals. It's helpful to build steps towards then actually communicating with people. Therefore, with the October 7, which was the other part of your question, I hear a lot of emotional responses about, you know, a sense of loss of this interreligious dialogue that had been taken place before.

Judith Pajo [00:36:25]:

A lot of people were feeling, look, we've worked so hard on this. And to have that work be interrupted is really a sense of loss. But at the same time, I think it's it's bringing people to reflect more and to have also discussions in their smaller faith group about who they are. I think inevitably, the interfaith sector will be strengthened through this shock. I tend to look for the positive. It might it might be a very difficult period right now, but people are trying to regroup. And I think the conversation will change, and I I'm I'm hoping it'll be a better one.

Méli [00:37:01]:

Yeah. I hope so too. You've been doing this research. You've had all of these different experiences, lots of interesting conversations, I imagine. I'm curious about the impact of all these conversations and during COVID live streaming other kinds of services, what has the impact been on your personal faith identity and practice?

Judith Pajo [00:37:29]:

I think it's going to be positive, but I experience a lot of negative and a lot of loss for myself. You know, ahead of research, we all have all these protocols to go through, like the the ethics protocol and making sure that people that you interview, you know, they know that they're being interviewed for research purposes and what's going to be done with their data. So there's all this protection that we go through. And we always talk about the risks and benefits of the research to those individuals we study. But nobody talks about the risk to the researcher. I think I had a steady faith going in. And I can say that it's been only struggle, like faith struggle ever since I started the project. And I think the impact is because I'm talking to people and I'm not lecturing people.

Judith Pajo [00:38:17]:

I'm not teaching them. In the interviews, I'm really just supposed to ask questions and let the other people speak. And so what I'm hearing and what I'm listening to, it's really impacting me a lot. Because now all of a sudden people are commenting not only about their own religion, but about other religions. They're commenting about my religion too. And so I'm listening to other people narrate, you know, tell stories that really conflict with some of the ways in which I've been thinking about lineages for example. Like how how do we all relate to Abraham for example? It's very frustrating to hear people say no Abraham is ours. To reconsider some of these lineages and to to really listen to how other people view your relationship.

Judith Pajo [00:39:09]:

Not only to Abraham. Why am I even saying Abraham? I mean, to God, directly to God. The informants that I'm interviewing have different ideas about what your practice means, how it is or is not right. Not everybody is a cultural relativist. I'm supposed to as the anthropologist, I'm supposed to give everybody their space to explain their faith and their practice. But like I said, the risk to the researcher is that you have people commenting left and right about what I might have taken for granted in my own practice. And that is leading to a lot of reflection and a lot of loss. I don't look at certain things the same way that I did before, and, it's a lot of struggle.

Judith Pajo [00:39:54]:

To answer your question about the impact of the research, I'm trying to make meaning there. Yeah. It just feels like home has been lost. But I take refuge in the fact that there's a lot of struggles recorded in the Bible. A lot of people have struggled. So I think that I'll just sit with the struggle now. I don't see that as being outside of faith. I think that is that that is part of it. Again, I I I'm always optimistic. So this crisis can only make it better. You know, at the end, the struggle will have been worth it, but that doesn't mean that there's not a struggle right

Méli [00:40:31]:

now. I look forward to hearing how things develop for you over time and agree that when we look at the various biblical stories and and the non-biblical stories, the struggles, the struggles change us somehow or other.

Judith Pajo [00:40:52]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Méli [00:40:53]:

Good, bad, and different, but they change us. You know, just the other day I was speaking with someone about the import of the name changes. You know, there's a struggle and a figure in the Bible gets a new name. You know? So perhaps you will be taking on a new name in some way. After after this struggle, you'll see yourself in some other way.

Judith Pajo [00:41:19]:

It's not like just the individual has to change. I think that really engaging in meaningful interreligious dialogue can lead the religions themselves to change because they are not now what they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. I mean, the the religions themselves have evolved or or changed through the struggles of people. And so I feel if we're struggling in inter religious dialogue now, I don't speak for the other religions, but I think it will change Catholicism. It has already changed through interreligious dialogue in the last couple of decades, and I think it will continue to change. And again, I'm not telling other religions to change, but I speak for Catholicism because that's what I grew up with. And I maybe for lack of a better concept, I feel entitled to want to reform and change Catholicism. That's a lot of the intra religious dialogue that's going on within Catholicism.

Judith Pajo [00:42:17]:

A lot of struggles, a lot of discussion about how this institution needs to change. And so the hope is that I would also contribute to that. And I think the answers about reform and change are not just going to come within Catholicism. I my hope is that struggling and dialoguing with other religions is also going to help bring Catholicism forward. You know, to to bring it back to the original question you had, it's, I think it's not only the impact on the individual. I think the dialogue we're having will also impact the institutions as a whole.

Méli [00:42:54]:

Yeah. Golly. That's, that's a level I hadn't considered. So, yeah, I appreciate that expansion from the individual to the institution, really to the community. What is the, timeframe for this research and when might we be hearing final results? And will it be a book? Will it be something that we can actually, receive?

Judith Pajo [00:43:20]:

Yes. So far, I've presented at some of our academic conferences, you know, the American Ethnological Society, then I'm due to speak at the Society for the Anthropology of Religion soon, later this year. Based on those first, 75 interviews, I'm gonna be, publishing an article. It might be called something along the lines of crossing lines in interfaith work, cultural transgressions, and forgiveness in practice. Of course, I'm interviewing. I'm continuing to interview, do participant observation. Eventually, I do wanna have a book. I think I probably feel comfortable once I have maybe 300 interviews.

Judith Pajo [00:43:57]:

It's a multiyear project. And honestly, it's, although I hope to get the book out in a few years from now, I don't think that's the end of this project. For one reason or another, my biography has placed this this project into into my hands at this point, and I'm not I don't envision giving it up, trying to bring my Catholic theology and my cultural anthropology together.

Méli [00:44:24]:

Well, Judith, I so appreciate this conversation. Thank you for coming on my Living Our Beliefs podcast. Wonderful to learn about your personal path and your research and the how these two things have met and all good things to you. Thank you.

Judith Pajo [00:44:42]:

Thank you, Meli. Thank you so much.

Méli [00:44:46]:

Thank you for listening. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. If you'd like to learn more about that project, a link to the website is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye bye.