Perspective
Pilgrims of Hope, Scholars of Imagination
Cover illustration by Diana Ejaita. Cover design by Point Five Design.
By Wendy McDowell
“Perhaps the mission of the university is to train social poets, men and women who, upon learning the grammar and vocabulary of humanity, have a spark, a brilliance that allows them to imagine the unknown.”—Pope Francis1
I struggled more than I typically do with how to introduce this issue of the Bulletin, not because of its contents—as usual, our authors bring insight and depth to their topics—but because the weight of national and world events was bearing down on me. Should I attempt to reflect on the essays here in relation to the tumultuous weeks we’ve been living through, or would that be a fool’s errand?
Then, along with the rest of the world, I learned on April 21 that Pope Francis had passed away. Over the years of his pontificate, I’d kept a running file of my favorite “Pope Quotes” because I appreciated the uniquely poetic and inspiring way this pope expressed things. I was continually impressed by his commitments to economic justice and earth stewardship, and by the way he encouraged students and young people to take up lives of service.
As I proofread this issue while the coverage of Pope Francis’s life and legacy unfolded, it struck me how many of the themes and issues that preoccupied him are echoed here.
What better way to characterize the kinds of students Harvard Divinity School attracts and the alumni we send into the world than as “social poets” capable of “imagining the unknown”? And as I proofread this issue while the coverage of Pope Francis’s life and legacy unfolded, it struck me how many of the themes and issues that preoccupied him are echoed here.
Pope Francis’s exhortation that we should be “pilgrims of hope” in his final Easter message2 was one of the main emphases of Dean Marla F. Frederick’s September 2024 Convocation address, our lead feature. After describing historical events and ongoing wars that engender hopelessness, she turned to fostering hope. “Here, at Harvard Divinity School, we have a high calling, a lofty vision, a truly grand idea,” she said.
. . . we know and seek to understand the great sorrow and bitterness wrought by religion and religious divides; and, at the same time, we pursue and celebrate the great joy and connection inspired by faith and faith communities. I returned to Harvard, and to HDS in particular, in part because of the hope found here in these hallowed halls—the sense of possibility about what [HDS] has to offer a world in need.
Pope Francis’s regular pleas for his followers to show mercy to the hurting and the poor are embodied by the Ukrainian sisters and clerics in Chris Herlinger’s article.3 These faithful responders convert residences into rehabilitation centers and distribute humanitarian supplies to people in forgotten villages “whose remaining residents are predominantly elderly, among Ukraine’s poorest.”
And this pope’s important shift toward recognizing nature as a subject rather than a mere object4 is echoed in Swami Chidekananda’s piece. After completing the Hindu monastic fellowship at HDS, the Himalayas serve as his spiritual chaplains and teachers during a period “characterized by ambiguity and uncertainty.”
Pope Francis also advocated for interreligious dialogue; he believed that encountering and respecting each other’s religious differences are key to fostering peace and understanding, especially in situations of conflict. Ghazal Asif Farrukhi’s essay on a sewing class for young Hindu and Muslim women at a Jhoolelal temple in Pakistan explores “the way that the very space of the temple also necessitated an intimacy with the fact of religious difference among neighbors and the potential spiritual force of Hindu deities for Muslim students.” She writes, “The center’s location in a Hindu sacred space shaped its social interactions, albeit through guarded aversions and silent crises in the middle of a robust gathering.”
All these authors are well versed in “the grammar and vocabulary of humanity,” as are Sarah Fleming and Andrew McCarron, who both address “limit experiences where ordinary logic and reason break down.” In Fleming’s review of Garth Greenwell’s novel Small Rain, a serious illness leads the narrator to a heightened attention to poetry and meaning-making, while McCarron explores rare moments of unio mystica, “profound encounter[s] with the infinite that can’t be easily explained or replicated,” often followed by long stretches of feeling the absence—even the abandonment—of God.
The “spark” and “brilliance” that motivate scholars are on full display in this issue. During my 25 years at HDS, I have never stopped admiring the deep devotion and tireless focus faculty and students show to their fields of study, allowing them to shed new light on religious texts and practices and to take nimble, nuanced, creative approaches that challenge disciplinary boundaries and narratives.5
Kate Whitaker critiques what has been lost in the widened scholarly gulf between the study of religion and the classics, but Annette Yoshiko Reed’s essay is one cross-boundary response. Focusing on ancient Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire, she explores “how ancient examples invite us to interrogate . . . our yearning for peace.” Yearning for peace “can feel so universal, so visceral, so human, so unassailably beneficial,” she acknowledges, but “Roman examples draw our attention to what this feeling can enable and erase.” We can “miss the dynamics whereby some may claim to bring rest and respite from conflict, albeit only for some at the expense of others” or “whereby some can claim to foster unity, tranquility, civility, and harmony, albeit by silencing others.”6
Ishay Rosen-Zvi’s philological study of the nature of Midrash—a project he has been devoted to for nearly two decades—takes us through the history of approaches and “schools,” then offers a distinct intervention in which an analysis of midrashic terminology leads to “the dismantling of the common midrash/allegory dichotomy” and reveals that “the novelty of Midrash lies as much in its form as in its content.”
Emmy Waldman discusses “the nesting confrontations of the [Jewish Museum] exhibition [Draw Them In, Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Hancock Confronts Philip Guston] . . . : each artist within himself; the artists with each other; and both artists with the casual conspicuousness and all-too-ordinary violence of white supremacist hate.”
Discussing his latest book on the Jewish Sabbath, Jon D. Levenson provides a comprehensive, groundbreaking, historically-informed look at “one of the Jews’ most commonly misunderstood practices”; allowing his important work to “live within the tension” between “the synchronic (or canonical or authoritative) and the diachronic (or historical) vantage point.”
May these multireligious examples of scholarly devotion renew our hope for a better world and spark our own imaginings of the unknown.
Notes:
- From Pope Francis’s meeting in 2023 with the Organization of Catholic Universities of Latin America and the Caribbean (dioceseofraleigh.org/news/pope-francis-mission-university-train-social-poets).
- “ ‘Urbi Et Orbi’: Message of his Holiness Pope Francis,” April 20, 2025, www.vatican.va.
- Pope Francis called war “madness” and a “sacrilege,” and condemned arms trading. He also consistently called for the welcome, protection, and promotion of migrants and refugees, emphasizing their inherent dignity and the moral obligation to help them.
- Laudato si, his 2015 encyclical on care for the environment, was praised as a “paradigm shift,” and is credited with helping to build consensus up to the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. One of its often quoted passages is: “Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it.”
- Dean Frederick reflects on the kind of work done at HDS and the importance of it being shared: “Indeed, as a form of practice, we scholars of religion intentionally think about the makings of our multifaceted religious worlds—the extensive histories, the sacred texts, the diverse communities, the balances or imbalances of power and resources, the affinities that make for religious devotion and care. How do we share these insights with a broader public amidst increasing social divisions, especially given that our hope for a multiracial and multireligious democracy depends upon our openness to others?”
- Yet Reed is careful “not to mine the past for any presentist models.” She writes, “To my mind, the value of a long view and historical purview is precisely the opposite. It is an invitation to see differently and know differently.”
Wendy McDowell is editor in chief of the Bulletin.
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