The days are over when religions could take refuge in splendid isolation. In Europe, for example, religious people can no longer ignore the existence of the millions of foreigners with different cultures who are now living there. They can no longer ignore the fact that, across three quarters of our planet, the dominant religion is not Christianity. We must distinguish between interreligious dialogue and intrareligious dialogue. The first confronts already-established religions and deals with questions of doctrine and discipline.
Intrareligious dialogue is something else.
It does not begin with doctrine, theology and diplomacy. As long as I do not open my heart and do not see that the other is not an other but a part of myself who enlarges and completes me, I will not arrive at dialogue. If I embrace you, then I understand you. All this is a way of saying that real intrareligious dialogue begins in myself, and that it is more an exchange of religious experiences than of doctrines. I am obviously against what is fashionable today, which seems to be a matter of going here and there in search of spiritual satisfaction, and which ends in leading nowhere.