Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, the retired Bishop of Rome, died today, December 31, at age 95. Many will write learned, well-informed commentaries on his legacy. Rightly so, since that legacy is vast, complex, and very influential. I am a scholar of some Hindu traditions, and a Catholic comparative theologian, and I cannot hope to compete with such ecclesial erudition. My reflection here is simply my own pondering of what I, a Catholic intellectual, have learned or worried about, when thinking of the example of Benedict...

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den....

Twice at least I was in Madras (Chennai), south India, in the spring and summer, before the rains came. As was too often the case, the rains were delayed, and water supplies were dwindling. Water was being rationed; people who could afford it purchased smaller and larger quantities from private companies that brought in water from afar. The poor and even many in the middle class lined up with buckets, waiting for a city water truck to come by, to dole out a day’s supply. I lived both times in a Jesuit house, and we had our own water tank on the roof. But we were urged to save water –...

More than 50 years ago, very early in my years as a Jesuit, I attended a conference on the international mission of the Society of Jesus. The keynote speaker, Fr Horatio de la Costa, SJ echoed a sentiment attributed to Jerónimo Nadal early in the Society’s history when he told the gathered Jesuits, “We must have hearts as large as the world.” The words ignited a new fire in me. Unexpectedly, they prompted me on a course that just two years later would find me in Kathmandu, Nepal, embarking on my first...