God’s Other Children with Bradley Malkovsky

QUICK SUMMARY

What happens when a Catholic scholar spends decades living inside the world’s great religious traditions, not just studying them from a distance, but praying, meditating, and forming deep relationships across faith lines? Professor Bradley Malkovsky of the University of Notre Dame has done exactly that, and what he found might surprise you. In this episode, Brad takes us from a Benedictine monastery in New Mexico to a 10-day silent Vipassana retreat in India, from the holy peaks of Mount Athos to a miraculous stone-lifting ceremony at a Muslim saint’s shrine in Maharashtra. Along the way, he challenges Catholics to take seriously what Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate actually says and what most Catholics have never been told.

IN THIS EPISODE, WE EXPLORE

• Nostra Aetate (Vatican II, 1965) was a revolutionary shift in Catholic teaching, recognizing holiness as possible in other religions. Most Catholics have never read it.
• Holiness is not exclusive to Christianity. Brad’s decades of lived experience, not just theology, convinced him the Spirit of God is genuinely at work in other traditions.
• Meditation and prayer are not the same thing, but meditation can be a bridge to deeper prayer. Brad still uses breath-awareness techniques from Vipassana in his own spiritual life.
• Reincarnation addresses the problem of evil in ways that Christianity struggles with but falls short of Christianity’s affirmation of the infinite dignity of the individual human person.
• Real interfaith encounter requires meeting people, not just ideas. Brad’s view of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam was transformed not by books alone, but by encountering holy people. 

ABOUT BRADLEY MALKOVSKY

Bradley Malkovsky is a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and an internationally respected scholar of comparative theology and interreligious dialogue. He has taught at Notre Dame since 1992, holds advanced degrees from the University of Tübingen, and studied Sanskrit and Hindu thought at the University of Pune in India, where he also lived for five years. He is the author of God’s Other Children: Personal Encounters with Faith, Love, and Holiness in Sacred India, winner of the Huston Smith Publishing Prize. He previously served as editor of the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies.

MEMORABLE QUOTE

“When you actually meet somebody — don’t just hear about something from a book, but actually encounter the living presence of someone who’s holy from another religion — it changes everything.” — Bradley Malkovsky

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton — Find it here
• ️ Christ in the Desert Monastery — Abiquiú, New Mexico (where Brad spent nearly a year in 1973)
• Vipassana Meditation (Goenka tradition) — 10-day silent retreats offered worldwide
• ⛪ Mount Athos — Eastern Orthodox monastic peninsula in Greece
• Haji Ali Dargah — Muslim pilgrimage shrine in Maharashtra, India
• Nostra Aetate (Vatican II Declaration, 1965) — Read the full text
• Bede Griffiths — Brad’s primary spiritual mentor in India; explore his work here
• ️Turning to the Mystics podcast with James Finley (Center for Action and Contemplation) — Listen here
• The Buddhist Conversion — Paul Williams on the infinite value of the human person in Christianity vs. Buddhist metaphysics