Javier Melloni

Javier Melloni Ribas is an Italian-Catalan Jesuit anthropologist and theologian.

Biography

Javier Melloni Ribas was born in Barcelona in 1962; his mother is Catalan and his father, Italian. At 18 he joined the Society of Jesus He became a Jesuit priest, graduated with a degree in cultural anthropology and obtained a PhD inTheology. He currently lives in the Cueva de San Ignacio in Manresa, Catalonia.

Career

Melloni is a Jesuit who became interested in the Ignatius spiritual exercises and acquired thorough knowledge of religious texts. He is a member of Cristianisme i Justícia, a professor of Spiritual Theology in the and in the Institute of Fundamental Theology in Sant Cugat. His specializes in interreligious dialogue and comparative mysticism.

He is on the editorial board of journals such as Manresa (a journal of Ignatian spirituality) and Diagonal (a journal of interreligious dialogue). He is the author of essays on different topics focused on spirituality, theology, interreligious dialogue and comparative mysticism. These publications present his theoretical and practical exercises.

Religious perspective

Interreligious dialogue

Javier Melloni is well known for being a theologian who practices, theorizes and reflects about interreligious dialogue. This expression was first formulated by St. Cipriano de Cartago(288): it was resumed and strengthened in the fourteenth century by Boniface VIII in his Bull Unam Sanctam (1302), and submits it to the next level distanced from the actual religion in order to

Melloni’s theoretical background involves anthropological, sociological, epistemological and theological factors. For him, the interreligious dialogue is a normal dialogue that needs the participants’ willingness to be open-minded and to detach from themselves in order to enable the existence of others. Comparative mysticism involves a journey through the mystical experiences that every religion has.

Work