I'm not a practitioner but I've read some stuff on it - is there a basic idea I got wrong?
And I think the point originale was that the Christian religion is one that is fundamentally oriented toward the truth; the fact that many religions have to begin with, "We want you to believe in X, but everything that has been written/said about X until now is a lie" made me view Christianity differently.
Even if Buddhism doesn't fit that particular objection, the Buddha's existence is given as an estimated 2,000 year time span. While technically he is historical- people squabble over Jesus' birth on like a nine year range - I just don't see it as the same thing.

I think the most obvious example, which I already mentioned, would be the appropriation of Aristotelian philosophy. You may not consider that a "religion", but then we go down a long road of trying to understand what a "religion" is (some don't consider Buddhism a religion either). In any event, Aristotelian philosophy is a method for investigating truth that was originally foreign to the Church. She later came to see that she could express her innermost truths in a fresh and insightful way in terms of this thought system, and now that way of understanding it is essentially inseparable from the Church's teaching.

More trivial examples would be the appropriation of European pagan rituals within the life of the Church -- Christmas trees and Easter eggs and so forth. That stuff doesn't come forward in the magisterial teaching of the Church, but it has clearly been welcomed in the life of the Church, because the Church recognized that these pagan expressions of hope (in the lit up Christmas trees) and new life (in Easter eggs) were valid expressions of the same mysteries that she held within her.

It's worse than that: to the extent that no moral absolutes are available to atheists, some atheists like me maintain that they are also unavailable to theists. God has no power to create a meaningful, non-arbitrary morality that would not otherwise be available in some manner to atheists. Convincing me that a God exists tomorrow would not change me into a moral absolutist!

So the answer is no - despite the citations the church wants nothing and desires to learn nothing from other faiths?

Now you see... I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion. If you quote which part of what I said led you to conclude that the Church "wants nothing and desires to learn nothing" from other faiths I could either better agree or disagree with you. As it is, I'm left wondering, "What do you mean 'despite the citations'? The examples illustrate how the Church does assimilate certain things from other faiths."

Anyway, I just wanted to share the example that came to my mind regarding not using the word "Yahweh" in line with the Jewish faith tradition.

I posted before the other post was visible. So the answer is no - despite the citations the church wants nothing and desires to learn nothing from other faiths?

I was asking for evidence that the church has ever assimilated ideas from another religion.

As to doctrine, the Church has no need of assimilating "ideas" from elsewhere because She contains (in union with Her Lord) the fullness of Truth.

As to expression, the Church assimilates some things from other cultures/religions where appropriate. For example various artistic expressions. Another example: a few years ago there was a requirement for parishes to not use hymns containing the word "Yahweh". I think this is based on the Jewish reverence for the name of God (Jewish people say "Lord" instead).

M, on a bit of a tangent, it would be useful if you quote the person you're responding to so that the reader knows exactly which point you're addressing.

I see you're not familiar with Buddhism. And you're completely missing the point.

I don't find your evidence completely unconvincing (though a single priest having conversation with Buddhists does not demonstrate that the CHURCH is open either to dialogue or assimilation), but that's not what I was asking for. I was asking for evidence that the church has ever assimilated ideas from another religion.

I think it is clear that I wasn't claiming that the Church had appropriated Buddhist thought into her magisterial teaching. I think that is a possibility for the future (probably the very distant future), but all I was claiming for now is that the Church has clearly signaled an openness to learning from the Buddhist tradition. I have provided what I consider to be real evidence of this openness.

I think part of the reason you find my evidence unconvincing is that you have a different concept of how the Church works than I do. The Church is an organism -- the Mystical Body of Christ. That vast organism sometimes expresses its innermost logic and definitive boundaries through the magisterial voice of the Church, but what the magisterial voice expresses is not the totality of what the organism does, nor is it necessarily near the forefront of what the organism is doing. Orthodoxy is expressed magisterially only after a long dialectical process within the Church. In the meantime, when members of the Church -- cells who were grafted onto that vast organism in their baptism -- begin to assimilate Buddhist thought in their lived Christian faith, and when those actions are not only not rejected by the magisterium, but are actively encouraged, that IS the appropriation of Buddhist thought within the life of the Church.

Islam claims to be of Abrahamic origin that needed Muhammad to right the "mistranslations" of the Christians and the Jews (they too believe Jesus will come again in the end times). Buddhism claims that suffering is caused by detaching from the world you see around you, and Mormonism is another religion that claims that Judaism and Catholicism have essentially corrupted the message.
What I am saying is that Catholicism makes only positive claims and doesn't have to deny or rely on someone else to deny something happened (at its inception at least). All of those other religions rely on you to actually disbelieve something tangible that came before it (in the case of Buddhism, I'd argue that you have to deny the world itself).