Can One Person Belong to Two Faiths? The Experience of Three Catholic Monks

Abstract

In the last decade, the question of multireligious identity has begun to receive academic attention. In particular, scholars are beginning to explore examples of people who have experienced two religious traditions equally seriously – that is, the experience of ‘double religious belonging’. This paper reframes, in the light of the notion of double belonging, the lives and experiences of three Roman Catholic priests and monks who moved from Europe to India in the twentieth century and are regarded as ‘founders’ of the Saccidananda Ashram in South India, while providing insights on how we understand double religious identity and the process of religious identity formation.