Spiritual Friendship and Interreligious Dialogue: The Experience of Chiara Lubich and Nikkyo Niwano

This study introduces the spiritual friendship between Chiara Lubich and Rev. Nikkyō Niwano, founders and longtime presidents, respectively, of the Focolare Movement and of the Risshō Kōsei-kai. The two movements, though founded in completely different geographical, social, and religious contexts, are part of a larger phenomenon that characterized the second half of the twentieth century. The article attempts to evaluate the role that the two spiritual leaders and their followers had, and still have, in interfaith dialogue between Catholics and Mahāyāna Buddhists and on a wider scale between the faithful of different religions. Lubich and Niwano had, in fact, a prophetic role in this context