October 12, 2026 – This Week’s Episode
Episode #94, John Dear speaks with Cyprian Consiglio, Sec. General of Monastic Interfaith Dialogue in Rome
Today, John Dear speaks with his friend Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, a well-known composer and musician, the former prior of the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, Cal., and now the Sec. General of Monastic Interfaith Dialogue in Rome, a movement within the Benedictine and Cistercian orders that promotes interfaith dialogue between monastic communities of different religions. He is the author of several books including Prayer In the cave of the heart: the Universal Call to Contemplation; Spirit, Soul, Body: Toward an Integral Christianity Spirituality, and most recently, Epiphanies of Nature and Grace.“Catholicism and Christianity in general have something vital to learn from other religious traditions,” he tells John. “The world really depends on dialogue between the world religions. So many of our conflicts are based on our ignorance of other religions.”
Recently when someone criticized him for wasting his time on a peripheral issue, he responded that every day the front page news is full of horrific violence based in Muslim fundamentalism, Jewish Zionism and Christian nationalism. Everyone has a warped understanding of God, he says. Nothing could be more relevant. “Evil is very gaudy, loud and colorful; building deep bonds of friendship among the religious traditions around the world is quieter and sturdier. It’s another aspect of peacemaking,” he says.
“One of the most important things we need right now is interreligious dialogue. We all need to find the next step in our maturity in the understanding of God.”
Listen in and be inspired!
October 19, 2026 – This Week’s Episode
Episode #95, John Dear reflects on the life and witness of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker
Last month, at the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence international conference in Rome, John Dear suggested in his speech that it’s time we all took up Dorothy Day’s example and committed ourselves full time to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Just after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, as the U.S. entered World War II, she published a bold headline saying, “Our Manifesto Is the Sermon on the Mount!” Thousands left her movement overnight. That is the stand that we all need to take.
With that in mind, John Dear is offering a new podcast on the life and witness of Dorothy Day, to learn from her how we too can live as servants and disciples of the nonviolent Jesus and proclaim the coming of God’s reign of peace, even in a bad time.
“Nonviolent resistance is the only sane solution,” she wrote during the war. “We have to continue to make our voice heard until we are finally silenced—and even then, in jail or concentration camp, to express ourselves. If there are not some who still hold this ideal, still speak in terms of the counsels of perfection, the ideal will be lost. I do not see why we must accept the inevitability of war. It was only in the last century that slavery was done away with here in this country, and I suppose that everybody thought it was something to be accepted. If we are working towards peace, we must look with hope that in a future generation, we will do away with war. With great suffering and great prayer, we are trying to hold up these ideals.” Listen in and be inspired!
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John Dear’s new book
Universal Love:
Surrendering to the God of Peace
By John Dear
For more information, click here
Available from www.orbisbooks.com or call 1-800-258-5838, or Amazon.com
October 12, 2026 – This Week’s Episode
Episode #94, John Dear speaks with Cyprian Consiglio, Sec. General of Monastic Interfaith Dialogue in Rome
Today, John Dear speaks with his friend Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, a well-known composer and musician, the former prior of the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, Cal., and now the Sec. General of Monastic Interfaith Dialogue in Rome, a movement within the Benedictine and Cistercian orders that promotes interfaith dialogue between monastic communities of different religions. He is the author of several books including Prayer In the cave of the heart: the Universal Call to Contemplation; Spirit, Soul, Body: Toward an Integral Christianity Spirituality, and most recently, Epiphanies of Nature and Grace.“Catholicism and Christianity in general have something vital to learn from other religious traditions,” he tells John. “The world really depends on dialogue between the world religions. So many of our conflicts are based on our ignorance of other religions.”
Recently when someone criticized him for wasting his time on a peripheral issue, he responded that every day the front page news is full of horrific violence based in Muslim fundamentalism, Jewish Zionism and Christian nationalism. Everyone has a warped understanding of God, he says. Nothing could be more relevant. “Evil is very gaudy, loud and colorful; building deep bonds of friendship among the religious traditions around the world is quieter and sturdier. It’s another aspect of peacemaking,” he says.
“One of the most important things we need right now is interreligious dialogue. We all need to find the next step in our maturity in the understanding of God.”
Listen in and be inspired!
October 19, 2026 – This Week’s Episode
Episode #95, John Dear reflects on the life and witness of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker
Last month, at the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence international conference in Rome, John Dear suggested in his speech that it’s time we all took up Dorothy Day’s example and committed ourselves full time to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Just after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, as the U.S. entered World War II, she published a bold headline saying, “Our Manifesto Is the Sermon on the Mount!” Thousands left her movement overnight. That is the stand that we all need to take.
With that in mind, John Dear is offering a new podcast on the life and witness of Dorothy Day, to learn from her how we too can live as servants and disciples of the nonviolent Jesus and proclaim the coming of God’s reign of peace, even in a bad time.
“Nonviolent resistance is the only sane solution,” she wrote during the war. “We have to continue to make our voice heard until we are finally silenced—and even then, in jail or concentration camp, to express ourselves. If there are not some who still hold this ideal, still speak in terms of the counsels of perfection, the ideal will be lost. I do not see why we must accept the inevitability of war. It was only in the last century that slavery was done away with here in this country, and I suppose that everybody thought it was something to be accepted. If we are working towards peace, we must look with hope that in a future generation, we will do away with war. With great suffering and great prayer, we are trying to hold up these ideals.” Listen in and be inspired!
Listen on Apple, Spotify, all major platforms,
and the National Catholic Reporter
Listen on Apple, Spotify, all major platforms,
and the National Catholic Reporter