Catholic Priest Installed as Zen Teacher in Bond of 2 Cultures

A Jesuit priest who already wears a number of hats has added a unique one to the collection--that of a sensei, or a Zen teacher.

At a Buddhist community in Yonkers, N.Y., earlier this month, Father Robert E. Kennedy became the first teacher of Zen Buddhism who is not a Zen priest.

Sensei Kennedy, who also teaches theology and Japanese at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City, N.J., and works as a psychotherapist in New York and Connecticut, was installed last Saturday at the Zen Community Center in New York City.

Bernard Glassman, founder of the community, created a new public ceremony expressly for the installation of a Catholic priest in the position.

Kennedy sees strong connections between the Zen tradition and Catholicism.

For him, the challenge is “to be faithful to both traditions, to be an honest broker of both traditions.”

Kennedy acknowledges that there are significant differences between Zen Buddhism and Catholicism. Nevertheless, he says, “to be Catholic means to always be open to what God has revealed in other faiths.” He notes that this attitude was commended by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

Kennedy notes that Jesuit interaction with Buddhists dates back to the 16th Century in Japan. His own interest developed after he was assigned to Sofia, the Jesuit university in Tokyo, in 1957.

After earning a doctorate in sacred theology at the University of Ottawa in 1970, Kennedy began teaching theology at St. Peter’s. On a sabbatical in 1976, he returned to Japan for formal studies in Zen Buddhism.

He entered the Blanton-Peale Graduate Institute in New York to train as a psychotherapist, joined the Zen Center in 1980 and earned a second doctorate in ministry from Boston’s Andover-Newton Seminary in 1984.