Vatican
City, 16 July 2013 (VIS) – From 17 to 20 July the Austrian city of
Graz will host the international interreligious conference “Com
Unity Spirit”, organised by, among others, the Afro-Asiatic
Institute founded by the Catholic Church in 1964 with the aim of
encouraging interreligious and inter-cultural dialogue through
research projects, study meetings and international conferences. The
city has a long tradition of participation in city life by its
various religious communities, and in 1997 hosted the European
Ecumenical Assembly.
The
conference proposes a further step in the dialogue between religions,
with a view to drafting a final message in which it will indicate
what the religious communities can and should do to make cities more
welcoming and respectful towards human values, in order to promote
the co-existence of different religions and cultures, fully
respecting the freedom of every man and woman.
Over
150 representatives of religious communities will participate, from
the orthodox Serbian Bishop Andrej to the Grand Mufti emeritus of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mustafa Ceric, from the rabbi Michael
Jedwany, member of the Conference of European Rabbis, to the writer
Karl Veitschegger of the diocese of Graz-Seckau. Scholars and experts
in interreligious dialogue have been invited to take part in the
conference to discuss and share a variety of opinions not only on how
to proceed in the construction of peaceful co-existence between
religions, but also the idea that Europe is experiencing a phase of
particular importance for its future precisely because of the
presence of so many religions and cultures, which represent an
important resource for times to come.
The
programme includes a series of public conferences and parallel
sessions in which brief texts on experiences of research and dialogue
will be presented and discussed. The inaugural session will be
dedicated to the theme of the relationship between political and
spiritual power in the light of Christian experience from the time of
the first communities until the present day. The parallel sessions,
which will consider how people of different religions can live
together in the same cities in peace, will focus on the following
themes: the relationship between religion and spirituality, the
teaching of religion, religious freedom as a universal right, the
causes of potential conflict between religious communities, the
socio-political role and responsibility of religions in contemporary
society, and cultural and artistic expressions of religious
diversity.
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