Elias Mallon, S.A.

For more than 20 years Father Elias Mallon, a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, has worked in Christian dialogue with non-Christians, Muslims in particular. His most recent efforts have been with Franciscans International, a nongovernmental (nonprofit) organization and the United Nations, where he is involved in issues of interreligious conflict transformation and peace building, including those in the Middle East. He also speaks and teaches widely.

Previously Mallon was on the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches in Bossey, Switzerland, where he also represented what is now the Catholic Church’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He worked as well at the Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute, a ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, and was even interim dean for a year of Auburn Seminary, a Presbyterian seminary in New York City.

In addition to his ecumenical work, Mallon has taught Old Testament and Near Eastern Languages.

“How one asks a question greatly determines how one seeks the answer,” Mallon says. “For centuries Christians have been asking if non-Christians could be saved. Early on in my work with non-Christians the question which arose for me and continues to motivate me is: What is our good and loving Creator trying to tell us by the existence of different religions in our world? It is a question which fascinates me, humbles me, and drives me on.”

What do you think people can learn from dialoging with those from other religions?