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I absolutely loved speaking with Ted. I learned a lot about Ted himself, which I did not know regarding his Hindu practice and the young age at which he took it up. It was wonderful to hear about his deep devotion to his Christian faith and the Hindu meditation he will practice in his words until the day I die. He represents the best of the openness of Catholicism to other religious traditions, as his openness to these traditions is grounded in his personal openness and acceptance. This started with his meeting of Dr. Usharbudh Arya at the Meditation Center of Minneapolis, which is still operating.

This led to his continued practice but also his academic study of Hinduism and comparative theology at St. John’s University and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. I mentioned in passing the beautiful architecture at St. John’s University; the chapel at St. John’s and it architect Marcel Breuer were the inspiration for the film The Brutalist. If you get a chance, you should see it! Completed in 1961 and designed by modernist architect Marcel Breuer, the chapel has a 100-foot concrete bell tower, parabolic arches, and massive hexagonal stained-glass walls. If you cannot get there, check it out online.

I appreciated how Ted wrestled with his meditation practice when he began to study theology formally and found that through documents such as Lumen Gentium and Nostra Aetate, the Church’s openness to other traditions had expanded. This has only increased over the decades since and I encourage people of all faith traditions to read the new document “A Journey of Hope: Sixty Years of Interreligious Dialogue and Fraternity in the Light of the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate” on September 16, 2026. I have mentioned it before but it might demand its own episode.

Ted mentioned pluralism, inclusivism, and exclusivism as stances that are discussed in the Christian understanding of relationships to other world religions. If you want even more background on these terms, please check out the first episode of season two on What Matters Most with the Rev. Dr. Rob James: Incarnation, Soteriology, Exclusivity/Inclusivity, Pluralism, Particularism, and Universalism: A Conversation with Rev. Dr. Rob James .

And please check out the names of other scholars who do this work, such as Paul Knitter, Fr. Francis X, Clooney, SJ, and James Fredericks, all mentioned by Ted and all who do comparative theology. Ted also mentioned Mircea Eliade, a Romanian scholar who spent much of his career at U of Chicago. Eliade did comparative religion and has been criticized for presentations of religion in terms of essentialism and perennialism, but he was a giant in an emerging field and still worth reading.

Finally, Ted mentioned the person about whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation, Henri Le Saux, a Roman Catholic priest, who later took the name Abhishiktananda.

If you are interested in this work, do find some of the writings and the thinkers referred to here, including Ted’s writings. If you are having trouble tracking them down, please do contact me. And think about taking the course at St. Mark’s College with me, Catholicism and Interreligious Dialogue where we dig into work like this for the whole course.

Welcome to What Matters Most, episode 7 of our fifth season. You were just listening to Dr. Ted Ulrich, a professor in the theology department at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. In this episode I speak with Ted Ulrich about Hinduism and Catholicism and how they both form a part not just of his academic life, but his spiritual life and practice. This is the first episode on What Matters Most to discuss Hinduism, which surprised even me! I found this an episode filled with warmth and honesty from Ted, something which is central to him as a person. Ted adopted our cat Francesca when we moved away from Minnesota back to Canada as Francesca could not accept the adoption of our new dog Emerald into the house. Francesca cared for our old German Shepherd Hunter and she mourned Hunter’s death, searching for him for weeks, and bemoaned Emerald, hiding for over a month when she came to live with us, coming out only when Emerald was crated for bed. Ted came over to our home over a period of time and let Francesca get to know him before he adopted her. I think you will hear that same sort of sensitivity in this episode as Ted talks about his Hindu meditation practice that he took up as a boy and the Catholicism that is his central spiritual and religious practice and belief. And Emerald was with me as I recorded and Francesca was with ted as he recorded.

Dr. Ted Ulrich received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in chemistry, his master’s from St. John’s University in theology, and his doctorate from The Catholic University of America in comparative religion. He teaches courses in world religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, and Christian theology. In addition, he has led numerous study-abroad trips. Four of them were to India. These involved homestays in villages and focused on the Hindu, Muslim, and Syriac Christian religions. His writing and research have focused on interreligious dialogue in general and Swami Abhishiktananda in particular. Abhishiktananda (Henri Le Saux) was a Catholic priest and Benedictine monk who, while retaining his identity as a priest and monk, became involved in Hindu monasticism.

More recently, Ulrich spent the 2017-2018 academic year in India on a Fulbright Fellowship. His ongoing project is comparing and contrasting the development of the respective views of Aurobindo Ghose and Mahatma Gandhi on violence and nonviolence. A decade before Gandhi’s national leadership in India, Aurobindo had been a main leader in India’s freedom struggle. Whereas Gandhi had a strict emphasis on nonviolence, Aurobindo thought that the most effective method should be used. In some circumstances that might be passive resistance and in other circumstances violence. Later, he became known across the world as a mystic and spiritual master.

Ulrich has published in a variety of venues, including the International Journal of Hindu Studies, the Journal of Dharma Studies, the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, and The Journal of Interreligious Studies. On this episode we discussed his articles “The Catholic Church and the Non-Christian World: Teaching Lumen Gentium §16 and Nostra Aetate” and “Catholic Theology, Comparative Study, and A Practice Of Hindu Meditation.” Also, he has given talks at Annamalai University, Pondicherry University, Madras University, Madurai Kamaraj University, Jadavpur University, Gandhigram Rural Institute, and the University of Mauritius.

This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation.

Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most!

John W. Martens