'It Was Like World Peace'

So a priest, a rabbi and an imam walk into a….

More on that later.

When I was a teenager, my dad taught pharmacology at the I.U. Medical School in Indianapolis. Part of his job included working with graduate students in the Toxicology Department.

In the summer of 1967, I was 16 and my first job was doing very simple clerical work in that department.

That summer, two graduate students decided to share an apartment together. I still remember the comments that I heard from the faculty and staff members. They were astonished but pleased at the roommate situation because one of the students was a Jewish guy from Brooklyn and the other was an Arab from Tel Aviv.

Everyone went on and on about how amazing it all was. The entire discussion eluded me because I was very ignorant of the ways of the world and didn’t realize how groundbreaking this living arrangement really was.

A lot of time has passed, allowing me the opportunity to process those conversations over the years. Now I’ve come to understand just how wonderful it was for a Jewish guy from New York City to live in harmony with an Arab from the Middle East.

Now I understand how wonderful it is to hear about the interfaith build that is going on through Habitat for Humanity of Evansville.

Benedictine Sister Jane Michele McClure is the major gifts officer for the local Habitat organization. She explains that Habitat is an ecumenical Christian organization, endowed with the mission of showing the love of Jesus Christ.

Recently, the national organization began to encourage a wider range of volunteers to be a part of interfaith builds, volunteers that included not just Christians but Jews, Muslims and Hindus.

When the local group received a grant for an interfaith build,  that started to happen.

In 2014, an interfaith advisory council was established with members from a variety of faith traditions. They were “very enthusiastic,” Sister Jane Michelle says, and they included Dr. Mohammed Hussain, a member of the local Islamic community, and Rabbi Gary Mazo from Temple Adath B’Nai Israel. They became “vital leaders” on the advisory council, and they encouraged their faith communities to get involved.

Members raised funds to build an interfaith home, and they attended a groundbreaking ceremony together. Over the summer, Catholics, Muslims and Jews have worked together to erect walls and put down flooring.

“It was like world peace,” Sister Jane Michelle says, her voice in whispered awe. “This is like world peace.”

Evansville, she says, has become a “model of interfaith work.”

Habitat’s goal of providing housing for the poor echoes the call from Pope Francis, who encourages us to provide land, jobs and housing for the poor and the outcasts in society.

He tells us, over and over, that the love of the poor is at the heart of the Gospel.

The priest, the rabbi and the imam?

They walked into a Habitat build … of course.