A woman said this to Karen during her recent trip to Honduras. Along with a group of students from Harvard Divinity School, Karen was there to learn from the women of this rural Honduran community whose lives are plagued by rape and murder.  She had proposed a moment of silence to initiate the gathering of local women and foreign students that day, but she learned there was no more tolerance for silence in this community.  For too long violence and abuse has been hushed.

So they clapped.

Increasingly, I am aware of how silence shapes my formation as a young Catholic theologian.  Beginning with my early undergraduate years, I was schooled in the politics of Catholic speech: there are theological statements—even questions—that one simply cannot ask before certain audiences.   Over the years, however, I have learned that with meticulous care, one can find ways to articulate these inquiries in a language that veils its hints of potential “uncertainty” or “disagreement.”  If I break this decorum of speech, even in the nascent phases of my theological career, I fear it may cost me a professorship or a ministry job. I can already name numerous theologians and ministers for whom this is the case.

It is unsettling to recognize the many ways in which I must privately silence myself for the sake of avoiding potential silencing from others.  What kind of theology can happen in this environment? Can I produce relevant theology when I often feel that I cannot outwardly address the probing, courageous questions of my community?  Maybe once I’m tenured.  Can these questions wait twenty years?

For years, the unfolding public recognition of the Church’s orchestrated silencing of clerical sexual abuse victims has shaped my life as a Catholic.  These clergymen stood up and spoke before their congregations week and week—year after year—while their victims sat silently in the pews.  Yesterday in a report on Pope Benedict’s Palm Sunday Homily, the New York Times analyzed what sounded like an implicit response to critics who implicate his guilt in the European abuse scandals.  Granted, the Times reads between the lines of the Pope’s homily, but in the context of his public indictment, his words strike me as a clear attempt to hush his critics: “The pontiff said faith in God helps lead one ‘towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion.’” The silence continues–and I continue to wonder what kinds of faith development, worship, or social justice work can happen in a church of whispers and hushed voices.

How can a young theologian, situated within her own matrix of silence, speak out against the perpetual silencing that enabled—and continues to enable—the grave injustice of the global clerical abuse crisis and its mismanagement at seemingly every level of church leadership?  My silencing—as a woman, as a lay person, as a theologian and minister—will never amount to the painful silence imposed upon so many abuse victims in our church.  Breaking my silence will not cost me nearly as much either.

I do not know how to speak to our Church right now. In fact, these days I find myself so hurt and angry words feel useless for articulating the magnitude of our situation.  But I know there must be noise. “We don’t need a moment of silence.  There has been too much silence already.”  There must be noise.

Perhaps on Good Friday when I approach the cross of Christ’s suffering with our suffering, there will be no moment of silence.  Perhaps I will do as Jesus did—I will shout. “God, why?”

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I don’t just come for the poems; I come for all the white space that fills these poetry books.  The white space actually comforts me more, I think, reminding me  of two things:  First, reminding me of the arduous silence–all the wordless thinking–that accompanied very worthwhile word I have ever written.  Wordlessness can be precious and productive in its own ways.  Second, reminding me that I do not need to say everything–I do not need to say everything–only a few beautiful, dangerous, honest-to-God, true things.  Poems are so captivating because they say so much with so little.

I am so little, and I want to say something worth so much.

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And if there is one thing—one thing—I have learned in my two months at Harvard Divinity School, it is this: this whole inter-faith dialogue is easy talk and hard living.

Mind you, I came to Harvard Divinity School for inter-faith dialogue. Instead of attending a Catholic university—the natural choice for someone studying Catholic theology—I felt an unshakable tug toward this rare environment where I would have to give an account for my scholarship and faith tradition among those who would not share my assumptions and belief systems. I presumed this would be more like religion in the real world—as in our multi-religious, multi-denominational real world.   I also heard that being in diverse environments can lead one to recognize biases that would often go unnoticed if left unchallenged in settings full of like-minded people.

And my reasoning has proven itself true thus far: more than ever before, I am given daily opportunities to give account for my tradition, beliefs, and personal practices in a way that makes sense for people with varying degrees of familiarity with Catholicism. Concomitantly, I must face the assumptions that I take for granted about my faith when my peers and professors respond with, “Why?” or “How?” or sometimes, simply, “Huh?”

Amid all this, I’ve learned that it is a lot easier to talk about the logistics and importance of inter-faith dialogue (in its many forms—across denominational or religious divides), than it is to actually engage live in a situation where one must face it in every day life.  Constantly explaining one’s self to others while trying to earnestly consider their own unique religious identities and traditions—the inter-personal realities of living amid multi-faceted religious diversity are mentally and spiritually exhausting.

Although I came here to be in an environment “like the real world,” I’ve come to realize how religiously segregated my life “in the real world” has been, for the most part.  Most of us don’t discuss religion with people who have very different religious backgrounds on a day-to-day basis, right?  Most of my theological education has taken place among people who are Catholic or extremely familiar with (and generally sympathetic to) the tradition—I now know that played a huge factor in our discussions! What’s more, HDS also reminds me that it is difficult enough to learn to talk about religion among the people with whom one shares his/her tradition!  Really, a Catholic university presents a student with plenty of challenges concerning internal church dialogue.

So how will we learn to thrive in this situation? I keep asking myself this question. I keep asking my HDS friends this question.  There are days when I long for people who understand my unvoiced religious assumptions, who relate to my deep ineffable connection to my religion, or the strange ways that I negotiate my theological convictions within my tradition.  Having said that, I continue to engage the challenge presented by this inter-religious environment because, among some good things and a whole lot of struggles, there are small moments of dialogue when I recognize my friends’ love for their respective traditions, and it’s not threatening—it is familiar.  I may not recognize his/her tradition itself, but I recognize the mysterious devotion one possesses for it.  And there are moments when I feel really heard by someone as I describe my tradition, or deeply accompanied when someone attends my strange liturgy for the sake of gaining insight into who I am.

I think there’s something to this—to this whole loving people of different faiths and the subsequent presence of more productive dialogue.  We, world religions, need to become friends.  For when conversation takes place among friends, there is a different orientation to the subject at hand; it is one of companionship in difference. It is hard living, but with love.  How can we learn to do this better?

Throughout the years I have experienced the benefits of going to worship services at unfamiliar churches.  Foreign religious environments force me to face my own assumptions about God and religion—about who God is, how that God is to be worshiped, and what God’s worshipers look like and think about.  When I stand with charismatics lifting their hands in praise, or kneel with Muslim women as they whisper Arabic words of prayer, I ask myself, “What can I learn from this genuine expression of worship? How does this push me to think about God in new ways? Who is this God before me?”

Last night in Wally’s Jazz Cafe, I found myself asking these questions. Although I have a casual appreciation for jazz music, I am no musician (to my dismay).  I know nothing of the music theory and rhythms and chords upon which jazz improvisation is situated.  I could not recognize the finger settings and swift movements as the musicians’ fingers fluttered across trumpet, alto sax, electric guitar or acoustic bass.  The rhythmic bounce and sway of the drummer appeared chaotic to my untrained eye.

But while sitting there at the small wooden table—I believed.  The aesthetics and decorum of the worship space were foreign, but the energy, vulnerability, conviction of the performance before me was intoxicatingly persuasive.  I didn’t know how to recognize It, but I knew the Jazz God was in the room. I believed it.  I could feel It. I heard It.  I witnessed It in their worship.

I want to believe in the religious experiences of others, at least most of the time.  Only in assuming their genuineness can I begin to meet their Gods for myself.  And many times, these meetings become meetings with my own God in new ways.

Check out my article, “This Is What A Catholic Woman Looks Like,” featured  in the “Young Women & Catholicism” column at www.Patheos.com.

It wasn’t until halfway through the Mass that I realized the deep singing voice behind me belonged to the famous American Catholic politician.  ”Peace be with you,” I said, offering the tall man my tiny hand. Only as he reciprocated the gesture and words of peace did I became aware of who this man is.

It wasn’t mere celebrity that had his presence on my mind throughout the Eucharist and the rest of the Mass. After a week of meditating on the difficulties of being a Catholic feminist in light our nation’s debates concerning reproductive rights, there I was with the famous public figure who has been set apart as the embodiment of this tension between women’s rights and religious tradition.

I was humbled. What kind of courage and devotion must one possess to show up to Mass time and time again, undoubtedly aware of the political implications accompanying every walk one takes toward the altar in that communion line? Although there is real friction in my feminist Catholic identity when it comes to navigating the question of abortion, the discomfort I experience and the Catholic allegiance I profess in light of it is really so easy compared to a man who must work out these tensions so publicly.

From the protest lines to the Communion line. I felt a great deal of courage, standing in that line with him.