Serge Moussa Traore

Serge Moussa Traore (Speaker USH 26 October)

Trahore Serge Moussa Traore is a catholic priest. He is from Burkina Faso, West Africa. He lives and work as a missionary priest in Rwanda, Central Africa. He belongs to the Society of the Missionaries of Africa, a catholic order committed to the sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Africa through interreligious and intercultural dialogues. His Society since the foundation in 1868 in Algeria was deeply involved in promoting better understanding between Muslims and Christians. Serge has been formed in that particular attention to the cultures and religions of the people. In Rwanda he is essentially involved in an interfaith program for peace and in the ministry of spiritual counsellings.

After the tragic event of the genocide, an interfaith program has been initiated as a contribution to the process of healing, reconciliation and peace in Rwanda. Interfaith dialogue in Rwanda helps to uproot the deep causes of the conflicts which are inside the Rwandan person. They have to mobilize all the spiritual resources found in all the religions to bring about healing, reconciliation and peace. Any exclusive religious attitude will worsen the wounds of Rwandans. The war has revealed the superficiality of the faith of Rwandan. Interfaith dialogue is a precious moment to deepen the faith. Through such dialogues Rwandans learn how to go beyond the unnecessary and divisive elements of religions in order to center oneself on the essential: love.

Serge left Rwanda some times ago for specialized studies in interreligious dialogue. He always combined academic work with life experience encounters of people of different faith. He studied Islam and the Muslim world by living one year in Egypt. He also studied the Indian religions by living one month in India. He values very much those experiences of immersion in the cultures and religions of people. It helped him discover the intrinsic values of the other. He is himself the fruit of an interreligious marriage, his mother being Muslim and his father Catholic. Interreligious relations is part and parcel of his life. He has now completed an MA program in the studies of Religions and Interreligious Dialogue in Rome, Italy.

Before he returns to Rwanda he has been selected to participate in the Fulbright Interfaith Community Action Program 2008. The program is in it second year. This year they are 10 scholars and activists in the field of religion and interfaith dialogue. They are from 10 different countries, and from the three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. After an introductory seminar, of three weeks at Temple University they have been sent to different universities of the country. Serge is hosted by Hartford Seminary.

The Fulbright ICAP is an exchange program. Serge will share his academic convictions about interreligious dialogue and also his own experiences of interrreligious activities. He wants to discover the diverse religious reality of America and how the religious communities effectively answer to the needs of their members. He desires to learn from the approaches to interfaith dialogue in America and from different interfaith community actions. Such exchanges will empower him for his mission of peacemaker in Central Africa. He hopes to build living interfaith communities that will be signs of healing, reconciliation and peace in Central Africa. He hopes also to provide education in interfaith dialogue and tolerance that will form peacemakers in Central Africa.
His pratical and academic formation has convinced him that a relevant interreligious dialogue that will help in creating a better world would be a sharing of our spiritual richness. We need to recognize the spiritual bonds that unite us despite our different religions and cultures. He has fixed his mind to discover always in the other “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, any excellence, anything worthy of praise”. Serge approaches the religions in an interioristic way. Instead of an exclusivist approach that rejects the non-christian religions as false, instead of an inclusivist approach that sees some partial, relative, and imperfect truths in other religions, instead of a pluralist approach that sees all the religions as all true and in so doing relativizes the Christian's claim to absoluteness of truth, Serge explores an interioristic approach through which Christianity would recognize the truths of other religions the way it recognized the truth in the sacred scripture of Judaism without negating the Christian truth. Thanks to an interreligious dialogue the Truth present in each religion will be made manifest, known. Then It has to be tested by human reason. And finally it has to be established as universal, valid for all. Serge believes that only such an understanding of the religions will make interfaith dialogue real and will foster a better understanding between people. He is very optimistic about the future, the future of Rwanda, and the future of the world, simply because he lives with a promise of God: “For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29, 11).

Let us know of any comments, errors and corrections - thanks (revised 10/16/08)