THE CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, INTERRELIGIOUS

DIALOGUE AND PEACE

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, INTERRELIGIOUS

DIALOGUE AND PEACE

José Antonio CAlvo Gómez & mArio torres JArrín

(Editors)

Salamanca – Stockholm 2020

Published by European Institute of International Studies Press

Salamanca-Stockholm

www.ieeiweb.eu

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INDEX

Preface. Interreligious Dialogue

Cardinal Lars Anders Arborelius ................................................. 9

Presentation

Amb. Antonio Núñez y García-Saúco ........................................... 13

Introduction

Pedro Merino Camprovín ............................................................ 15

1. The encounter as a real possibility. The theorem of Abraham

José Antonio Calvo Gómez .......................................................... 17

2. The culture of encounter diplomacy: a new diplomatic perspec-

tive for the 21

century

Mario Torres Jarrín ..................................................................... 31

3. Towards a Culture of Encounter: St. Francis, Pope Francis, the

Franciscan Tradition, and the Transformation of the Theory of

International Relations

Scott M. Thomas .......................................................................... 51

The agreement between the Holy See and the People´s Republic

of China for the appointment of bishops. General context and

expectations

Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa de Chinchetru ................................ 81

5. Interreligious dialogue as an instrument of peace

Abraham Skorka .......................................................................... 99

6. Culture of encounter: the path of interreligious dialogue

Mohammed Abu-Nimer ................................................................ 113

INDEX

7. The contribution of the United Nations to the creation of a cul-

ture of peace

Alejandro Garofali Acosta ........................................................... 129

8. KAICIID and Interreligious Dialogue

Álvaro Albacete ............................................................................ 145

9. Scholas occurrentes: young people and interfaith and intercul-

tural dialogue

Marta Simoncelli ......................................................................... 167

10. The recognition of Human Rights and its contribution to the cul-

ture of encounter

Lourdes de Miguel Sáez ............................................................... 173

11. University as an instrument for conict prevention

Concepción Albarrán Fernández & David Sanz Bas .................. 193

12. Wittgenstein and a Diplomat Walk into the Culture of the En-

counter

Shaun Riordan .............................................................................. 207

About the authors ................................................................................ 221

PREFACE

INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

CArdinAl lArs Anders Arborelius

Bishop of Stockholm and Cardinal of Sweden

It has become a commonplace to say that we live in a global village. Any-

way, we have to admit that we live in an age of globalization, whether we like

it or not. The media bring us news from all over the world. Immediately we

know what is going on at the other side of the globe. There are no frontiers to

news, fake or real ones. All the world and what happens there is present in our

own i-phone. At the same time, though, there is often a reaction against this

global atmosphere. A new kind of nationalism and populism has appeared all

over the world. This is indeed a paradoxical fact: a globalized nationalism try-

ing to create new frontiers to people of other cultures and religions and to put

up walls to make dialogue and encounter between us impossible. This could

be very dangerous and cause new conicts to arise or make old conicts come

alive. Pope Francis warns us, over and over again, how dangerous it is to build

walls instead of bridges.

This book wants to help us to build bridges between believers from dif-

ferent faith-communities. Religion, of whatever kind, ought to be a source

of inspiration for a culture of encounter and dialogue. Unfortunately, we can

also see that some people misuse and abuse the holy name of God in order to

spread hatred and contempt towards people of other creeds or at least to stop

believers of different background to grow closer to each other. This is also the

reason why faithful of good-will, regardless of religious afliation, have to

work together in order to foster a culture of encounter and dialogue. In order

to prevent this spirit of confrontation that seems to pop up all over the place to

grow, new means of proclaiming interfaith solidarity have become ever more

CARDINAL LARS ANDERS ARBORELIUS

necessary. This book would like to make a humble contribution to a renewed

interreligious solidarity and friendship.

This culture of encounter between different faith-communities has to be

made concrete on the local level. Even if a global effort is needed all over the

world, we have to see how it can be incarnated in various local cultures and

traditions. Here we want to show how this initiative is realized in the City of

Stockholm, even if this city is supposed to be one of the most segregated capi-

tals of Europe. An important source of inspiration comes from another city,

Buenos Aires, where Archbishop Bergoglio and Rabbi Skorka and others were

able to establish a profound spiritual friendship between faithful of various

religions. It is our hope that the encounter taking place in Stockholm can have

a similar effect. Actually, it is an interesting fact that the secular atmosphere in

contemporary Sweden seems to bring those who believe in God, of whatever

faith they might be, closer together. At the same time, though, this harmoni-

ous relationship between faith-communities needs to be strengthened and re-

newed. There are also new threats and dangers that a more nationalistic spirit

can bring about more confrontation and new frontiers in our Swedish society.

As a small minority of Catholics in Sweden, we are used to live in mul-

ticultural parishes, where faithful from all over the world try to build up a

spiritual unity and profound communion in Christ. This fact also helps us to

relate to the multireligious reality of modern Sweden. Many concrete experi-

ences and facts could be brought forward to show that bridges are being built,

e.g. in Stockholm-Fisksätra and Malmö-Rosengården. The Catholic Church

considers it as a part of her mission to promote deeper interreligious relation-

ships. Our faith in Jesus as the unique Saviour of the world is no obstacle to

our dialogue with believers of other creeds. On the contrary, the love of Jesus

brings us closer to all human beings, whoever they are and however they live

and behave. We have the task to proclaim the universal, saving love of Jesus to

all and sundry, but always in a spirit of respect and veneration for every single

human being created in the image of God. Our faith in Jesus as the Way, the

Truth and the Life helps us and inspires us to enter into a deep friendship with

every person that God sends us on our way through life. Pope Francis reminds

us ever so often that this culture of encounter is an integral part of the mission

of the Church to evangelize the world.

Interreligious dialogue is not an obstacle to evangelization. Jesus

sends us to all human beings in order to show them his love and friendship.

Thanks to a sincere culture of encounter, we can build bridges between all

INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

faith-communities and offer signs of hope in our global world of today. It is

my hope that this fact can show people of today, even those who tend to think

that religion as such is a source of conicts, that belief and adoration of God

can create universal solidarity and friendship, always and everywhere.

PRESENTATION

Amb. Antonio núñez y GArCíA-sAúCo

President of the European Institute of International Studies

This book is based on the core values of the European Institute of Inter-

national Studies (EIIS), focused on promoting ideas conducive to furthering

peace and tolerance, justice and welfare, and committed to reducing confron-

tation and tension between people, nations, cultures and religions.

War, as UNESCO so rightly puts it, is born in peopleʼs minds. The way to

rmly embed peace in peoples’ hearts, consciences and attitudes towards life,

therefore, inevitably starts in their minds.

Culture and religion are the most fertile breeding grounds for ideas and,

thus, for the development of a universal culture of peace and respect for dif-

ferent beliefs.

Throughout history, like human nature itself, civilisations and religions

have caused –or been instrumentalised for– confrontations and wars, even

between peoples of similar cultures and kindred religions. People have forgot-

ten that the overarching dignity of our human condition ought to overcome

differences and restrictions of identity, be they natural, cultural or political,

and that different religions, as this book suggests, are diverse approaches of

worshipping one God who has different names.

No good is conceivable without peace, and while conict is part of human

nature, so is the pursuit of peace.

Among initiatives aimed at resolving conicts or preventing clashes of

civilisations, to use Huntington’s term, the United Nations’ Alliance of Civili-

sations deserves special attention.

The religious communities of the Bible – Christian churches as well as

the other monotheistic religions have, for some time, established contacts and

AMB. ANTONIO NÚÑEZ Y GARCÍA-SAÚCO

developed exchanges of opinions, ideas, experiences and best practices aimed

at improving mutual understanding and respect.

The creation of an intergovernmental institution like KAICIID, reects

the specic objective of furthering intercultural and inter religious dialogue

on a global level.

State actors have thus been gradually joining the ongoing initiatives of

different confessions as well as of countless public and private, religious and

civilian, confessional and non-confessional institutions working for more dia-

logue, understanding and respect between civilisations and religions.

Pope Francis has added a third concept to those already established as al-

liance and dialogue: that of “incontro” –encounter– which, far from substitut-

ing or contradicting the former two, is poised to strengthen and enrich them.

While, in relation to the concept of alliance, that of “encounter” is, in our

understanding, externally less formal and internally more committed, both co-

incide in the essential positive dimension, the fusion of wills. In relation to the

concept of dialogue, “encounter” appears to be less concrete and instrumental,

but wider and more embracing. In terms of personal attitude, it is an indis-

pensable precursor and successor to dialogue: without the will to “meet” no

dialogue can be initiated or continued as permanent dialogue, leading to nd

in the other “not an enemy or adversary but a welcome brother to embrace”

with whom we can “walk together”.

This was the motto of the seminar “Walking together” which EIIS recent-

ly organised in Stockholm and which served to launch the publication which

you are now holding. The event was generously supported by the institutions

mentioned with gratitude in the acknowledgements.

One of the seminar’s conclusions features the need to lend universal char-

acter to encounter and dialogue via an international platform comparable to

the one UNESCO offers for education, science and culture, but, in our case,

directed towards the encounter and dialogue between civilisations and reli-

gions.

INTRODUCTION

Pedro merino CAmProvín, oAr

Vicepresident of the European Institute of International Studies

On occasion, it is considered, unjustly, that the variety of diverse reli-

gious observances is at the root of the main armed conicts throughout the

world. In an evident discrepancy, the actors involved in international rela-

tions bypass, in the same consideration, the spiritual dimension of the human

being; and frequently, in the resolution of conicts, they relegate the cultural

and religious aspects of peoples to a subordinate position in the face of nego-

tiations surrounding military capacities, borders and the jurisdictional spaces

of nations.

This book will not accept a simple reply to these assessments, which are

so clearly biased. It deals, most of all, with developing a double conviction.

First of all, we must understand that peacebuilding is the shared responsibility

of all peoples, of all human beings. Above all, it is about explaining that the

value of the spiritual dimension of man, of the performance of confession, in

particular of the three monotheistic religions –Judaism, Christianity, Islam–

that we shall study, represent, in their peace proposals, a signicant part of

the solution. In short, it deals with understanding that interreligious dialogue

can create a culture of encounter that contributes to improving international

relations and peace.

In the current international context, it becomes necessary to establish dia-

logue as the main instrument and human privilege, one to be implemented

not only in conict resolution, but also in the development of a culture of

encounter which will prevent these conicts. International dialogue has been

relegated to the hands of states. Thus, state instruments get to decide whether

to declare war or peace between peoples. The UN was formed in the middle

PEDRO MERINO CAMPROVÍN, OAR

of the last century as an organism tasked with nding peaceful resolutions to

the clashes between nations. In part, its work has contributed to maintaining

peace; however, its powers are limited. As a society, we must go further.

We must promote the culture of encounter from the very root of humanity,

from its core, in which, under physical space, the deepest, constitutive, de-

terminant, structuring dimensions come together: affection, intelligence and

above all, spiritual reality.

Modern society has suffered an intense deterioration of human sensitivi-

ty. There are many reasons, such as the focus on individualism in Western cul-

tures, the loss of family references or the misuse of new technologies. Modern

communication and media allow access in real time to dramatic scenes which,

far from bringing the harsh realities of war closer, have provoked a breakdown

of sensibilities. The intrahistorical project of human liberation has brought

about the rejection of the spiritual dimension of the human being. Religion

has been identied as an enemy to be fought against, without recognizing

that the transcendental space represents the identifying nucleus of the human

condition.

The plenipotentiary state has misinterpreted its role. Contemporary secu-

larism, transferred to international relations, forgets the supernatural dimen-

sion of the human being, which is the foundation of the construction of any

reality in which man is the protagonist. There is no state without the human

beings it is composed of and each one of them contains, in all of his or her

dimensions, the inalienable truth of their own existence.

The culture of encounter, from the innermost essence of human existence,

complex and passionate, from its material, moral, intellectual, and above all,

spiritual construction, is the basis for the new international relations, of peace

between human beings, between peoples, between nations. This book, from

very diverse scientic interpretations, tries to highlight this matter.

Finally, on behalf of the European Institute of International Studies, we

want to express our gratitude to each of the authors, for their contributions,

and the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm and Bonifatiuswerk, for their support

and funding of this book.

THE ENCOUNTER AS A REAL POSSIBILITY.

THE THEOREM OF ABRAHAM

José Antonio CAlvo Gómez

1. introduCtion

The scheme of this essay is simple. Firstly, we will recover two historio-

graphic responses on violence in the twentieth century. Both Eric Hobsbawm

(1917-2012) and Francis Fukuyama (Chicago, 1952) have tried to interpret

the development of the last decades from their respective intellectual posi-

tions, not always coinciding.

The Great War, and its continuation in World War II, found, in Hob-

sbawm’s 20th Century History, an abrupt end with the fall of the Berlin Wall,

German unication and, above all, with the collapse of the communist bloc.

Fukuyama, however, interpreted this victory of Western liberalism as the end

of history, as the natural conclusion of every process of human growth.

How, then, to interpret the events related to 9/11 both in Europe and the

United States and in the various Muslim-majority countries involved in the

conict? Are we facing a new chapter of the clash of civilizations of Samuel

P. Huntingtonʼs theory? Is there a solution for interreligious dialogue between

the Western Judeo-Christian tradition and the Eastern Muslim interpretation?

Is it even legitimate to divide the world between the Judeo-Christian West and

the Muslim East?

In the twentieth century, Pope Pius XI and his successors, especially Pius

XII and John XXIII, found the solution for World War II in the founding of

the United Nations Organization and, above all, in the constitution of the Eu-

ropean Union. In this essay, at the beginning of the 21st century, we propose

JOSÉ ANTONIO CALVO GÓMEZ

a solution for the interfaith dialogue between Jews, Christians and Muslims

and, in a sense, a response to the violence that, illegitimately, pretends to have

its justication in the faith and the profession of religion.

The solution for interreligious violence is Abraham's theorem as the fa-

ther of peoples who confess to one God, to one Lord, Creator of the world:

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Israel; the Father of Jesus

Christ and God of all comfort, who sends his Holy Spirit so that we may have

life, and life in abundance; the God of Ishmael, the God, Mercy and Loyalty,

of the Prophet Mohamed.

This theorem is simple: the peace is possible. The encounter between

peoples is a real possibility. It is realizable. It is attainable. The death of the

Son is no longer necessary to honor God. God has rescued us from the vio-

lence, consequence of the sin, so that we may live in truth and freedom. We

will try to develop these ideas. The twentieth century has been the time to kill

and die in the name of great ideals. At the beginning of the 21st century, we

want to recover some previous intuitions and propose a solution to build peace

in the name of a common ideal.

2. two studies on the wAr in the XX Century. rriC hobsbAwm vs. FrAnCis

FukuyAmA

In 1994, the British historian, Eric Hobsbawm, born in Egypt, aligned

fundamentally with Marxist historiographical theses, wrote a book about the

twentieth century, which was about to end. He titled it: The age of extremes.

In Spain, it was published in Barcelona by editorial Crítica, in 1995, under the

title: Historia del siglo XX, History of the 20th century.

The interpretative eld of Hobsbawm had been centered, until that mo-

ment, on the 19th century. His previous works included: The Age of Revolu-

tion: Europe 1789-1848, published in 1962; The Age of Capital: 1848-1875,

in 1975; and The Age of Empire: 1875-1914, which came out in 1987. When

he tried to analyze the twentieth century, he discovered, as a novice in the

literature, that, beyond the advances in medicine and science, beyond the evo-

lution of transport and social rights, what characterized the twentieth century

was war, was the violence. The Hobsbawmʼs History of the 20th century has a

subtitle: 1914-1991. This he explains as: short century, long war. The historian

THE ENCOUNTER AS A REAL POSSIBILITY. THE THEOREM OF ABRAHAM

confesses that he took that concept from Iván Berend, president of the Hun-

garian Academy of Sciences. We have wanted to rescue it for our essay.

Is war and violence the key to the 21st century? We use the concept of

short century to interpret the last century; although we will not analyze war in

the twentieth century, which is already well understood. We seek to reect on

peace, on the fragility of peace, on the construction of peace in this century;

particularly on the peace that is built and destroyed in the name of God.

In 1992, two years before the publication of the rst edition of Hob-

sbawm’s work on the twentieth century, the work of Francis Fukuyama The

End of History and the Last Man came out in New York in the Free Press

Editorial. Fukuyama tried to develop here the idea that he had already pre-

sented in the essay “The End of History?” in the international magazine The

National Interest of the Center for the National Interest of Washington. His

position was harshly criticized by Marxist historians such as Perry Anderson,

among others.

Fukuyama argued that, after 1991, with the breakup of the USSR and

collapse of the communist bloc in Europe, liberal democracy had denitively

triumphed and, therefore, according to Hegelʼs thesis, a turning back was no

longer possible. The collapse of communism was irreversible. Anderson criti-

cized Fukuyama for his optimism and pointed out how capitalist democracies

were riven with poverty, racial tension and violence. Democracy, Fukuyama

argued, compared to other communist or religious fundamentalist options,

represents the end of the history.

On September 11, 2001, after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York

and other US government buildings, the Marxist historians went back to ques-

tion Fukuyama. In his dialectical interpretation between real socialism and

liberal democracy, Fukuyama had forgotten other ways of understanding the

world like that represented by the Eastern world and Muslim thought.

Fukuyama immediately responded with a new essay, published in The

Wall Street Journal on October 5 of the same year. He titled it: “History is still

going our way”, with a subtitle: “Liberal democracy will inevitably prevail”.

In particular, he responded to the arguments of George Will (Champaign, Il-

linois, 1941), who claimed that “history had returned from vacation” and of

Fareed Zakaria (Bombay, 1964) who argued that the fall of the Twin Towers

symbolized “the end of the end of the history”.

He also wanted to answer to Samuel P. Huntington (1927-2008) and his

argument about the clash of civilizations. According to the American historian,

JOSÉ ANTONIO CALVO GÓMEZ

free market and liberal democracy could only be sustained in the West. These

mental structures were neither compatible with the Muslim mental conforma-

tion nor with the human conditions of Southeast Asia. The evolution of Islam-

ic fundamentalism, continued Huntington, that in recent years was dominating

much of the Middle East and Africa, made these regions of contemporary

Muslim societies spaces exceptionally resistant to the Modernity.

The most important thing Fukuyama tried to argue to Huntington is that

those who sympathized with the theories of Osama bin Laden and the funda-

mentalist terrorist groups were only a minority of Muslims. Although some

countries had certain difculties in developing democratic systems, the ma-

jority of the population was horried by what happened in New York in 2001

and, it could be added, on March 11, 2004 in Madrid; on July 7, 2005 in Lon-

don; and on January 15, 2015 in Paris.

In fact, most of those who die in terrorist attacks in Kabul or Mogadishu

are Muslims. 85% of Somalia residents profess the Muslim religion. On Octo-

ber 14, 2017, the attack with a truck bomb in a Mogadishu market caused 587

dead and 228 wounded, mostly Muslims. After the Twin Towers, it is consid-

ered the worst terrorist attack in history. On August 18, 2019, in the capital of

Afghanistan, 63 people died and another 180 were injured in a double attack

perpetrated when a wedding was held in a neighborhood populated by the

Hazara minority, that professes Shiite Islam. On July 23, 2016, this same Mus-

lim ethnicity had suffered another attack in which 83 people had died.

Where is the clash of civilizations? Probably the most correct interpreta-

tion is another. It would be, rather, to observe many people trying to provide

for their family, who desire to live in peace, and who do not want to know

anything about the terrorists who claim to kill in their name. For most of those

who profess Islam, the extremist groups neither know God nor understand

what the faith in God, the Compassionate, the Merciful means.

3. the solution oF Pius Xii beFore the seCond world wAr

Pope Pius XII experienced rsthand the drama of war. During his time in

Germany as ambassador of Pius XI, the nuncio Pacelli was able to analyze and

understand the growth of Hitlerʼs national socialism and actively collaborated

in the drafting of the encyclical letter Mit Brennender Sorge, With fervent

concern, on the situation of the Catholic Church in the German Third Reich,

THE ENCOUNTER AS A REAL POSSIBILITY. THE THEOREM OF ABRAHAM

published on March 14, 1937. Most scholars agree today that the fundamen-

tal text of the document of Pius XI came out the hand of the nuncio Pacelli,

later Pope Pius XII. It was the rst time, for centuries, that the Church wrote

a document in German, renouncing, on this occasion, entitling an encyclical

with the traditional Latin words that usually began the Popeʼs texts.

Expressly, in article 12, Pius XI condemned the action of the Third Reich

and its pretensions to alter the order of the natural law: “If the race or the peo-

ple, if the State or a determined form thereof, if the representatives of State

power or other fundamental elements of human society have in the natural

order an essential position worthy of respect, who, however, tears away from

them this scale of earthly values by raising them to be the supreme norm of

everything, even of religious values, and, deifying them with idolatrous cult,

perverts and falsies the order created and imposed by God, and is far from

true faith and a conception of life according to it”.

Because the law of God, as sated in article 14, “does not recognize privi-

leges or exceptions” that legitimize the action that, at that time, the German

state was developing against those it considered second-class citizens.

In case there was any doubt, the condemnation was expressed in article

15, in the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Only supercial spirits can fall into

the error of speaking of a national God, of a national religion, and undertake

the crazy task of imprisoning in the limits of a single people, in the ethnic

narrowness of a single race; to God, Creator of the world, King and legislator

of the peoples, before whose greatness the nations are like waterdrops in a

bucket (Is 40, 5)”. He continued in article 20, “the revelation, that culminated

in the gospel of Jesus Christ, is denitive and obligatory forever, it does not

admit complements of human origin, much less successions or substitutions

by arbitrary revelations, that some modern Coryphaeus wanted to derive from

the so-called myth of blood and race”.

Article 24 of the encyclical, in the light of the events that occurred later,

nds, without a doubt, a true expression of faith and martyrial commitment:

With hidden and manifest pressures, with intimidations, with prospects of

economic, professional, civic advantages or of another gender, the adhesion of

the Catholics to their faith […] is found subjected to a violence as illegal as

inhuman. […] We feel and suffer deeply with those who have paid so heavy

a price for their adhesion to Christ; […] as the only way of salvation for the

believer, there is the path of a generous heroism. When the tempter or oppressor

approaches him with the treacherous insinuations to leave the Church, then there

JOSÉ ANTONIO CALVO GÓMEZ

will be no other choice but to oppose him, even at the price of the gravest earthly

sacrices, the word of the Savior: “Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written:

Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve” (Mt 4,10;

Lk 4,8).

The truth is that the Great War, which had ended with the fragile armistice

of Compiègne, signed in a train carriage, in the north of France, on November

11, 1918, was reopened soon after in a new contest still difcult to analyze.

Itʼs not easy to interpret the death of around 70 million people and an unprec-

edented destruction of the natural order. The Jewish holocaust, the Shoah,

which caused the death of more than 6 million people for the mere fact of

belonging to this people, is inconceivable to the human sensibility.

On March 2, 1939, Cardinal Pacelli was elected as a Successor of Pius

XI, who died on February 10. The outbreak of the World War II, after the

invasion of Poland on September 1 of 1939, forced Pope Pius XII to resume

the condemnation of the Nazi regime and, above all, to propose a permanent

solution for the peace in Europe.

On December 24, 1941, in homage to the forty years of the letter Rerum

novarum of Pope Leo XIII, Pius XII congratulated the faithful on Christmas

in a radio message in which he could not leave aside the drama of the war:

“The guiding star of the Redeemer’s cradle […] teaches never to despair: it

shines before the people even when on the earth, as on an ocean roaring with

the storm, black clouds are piled up, loaded with ruin

and calamities” (n. 2).

And he continues: “In these bitter times of war convulsions, we are aficted

by your afictions and sore with your pains; We, who live, like you, under the

very heavy weight of a scourge, that tears apart humanity for three years, in

the vigil of such a great solemnity, we want to address, with the touched heart

of the Father, the word to exhort you to stand rm in faith and to communicate

comfort to you” (n. 3). The Christmas antiphon, reminiscent of Christ the

peaceful King,

resonates in raucous contrast with the events that rush loudly over mountains

and plains with frightening din, devastating lands and houses in vast regions

and throwing millions of men and their families into misfortune, into misery

and death. Certainly, admirable are the many displays of indomitable value in

defense of right and homeland; of serenity in the pain; of souls that live as ames

of the holocaust for the triumph of truth and justice. But also, with the anguish

that oppresses our soul, we think and, as in dreams, we contemplate the ter-

rible clashes of arms and blood in the year that declines towards its sunset; the

THE ENCOUNTER AS A REAL POSSIBILITY. THE THEOREM OF ABRAHAM

unfortunate fate of the wounded and prisoners; the bodily and spiritual suffer-

ings, ravages, destruction and ruins that the air war carries with it and pours over

large and populous cities, over centers and large industrial territories; the wealth

of the dilapidated States; the millions of men that the enormous conict and

harsh violence are throwing into misery and hunger (n. 4).

At this time, in 1941, Pius XII tries to present a way out of the war, al-

though he warns of the dire consequences of a solution not in accordance with

the natural order:

It would not be the rst time that men who are waiting to girdle the laurel

of warrior victories dreamed of giving the world a new order, opening to it paths

conducive, in their opinion, to well-being, prosperity and progress. But always

whenever they yielded to the temptation to impose their own construction against

the judgment of reason, moderation, the justice and noble humanity, they found

themselves fallen and amazed by contemplating the ruins of their failed hopes

and their unsuccessful projects. Therefore, history teaches that peace treaties

stipulated with spirit and conditions opposed to the moral standards, and to a

genuine political prudence, never had life, if it is not petty and brief, thus uncov-

ering and demonstrating an error of calculus, human without a doubt, but no less

deleterious (n. 14).

Pending a clearer proposal, which will arrive shortly after, Pius XII al-

ready points out some principles that should be present in the peace:

The ruins of this war are too enormous to add to it also those of a frustrated

and illusory peace; for this reason, to avoid such a great misfortune, it is con-

venient that with sincerity of will and energy, with the purpose of a generous

cooperation, collaborate for the peace not only this or that group, not only this or

that people, but all the peoples, even the whole humanity. It is a universal enter-

prise of common good, which requires the collaboration of Christianity, for the

religious and moral aspects of the new building that one wishes to build (n. 15).

The proposal is rm: “This new order that all peoples yearn to see real-

ized after the trials and ruins of this war, must rise up on the indestructible and

immutable rock of the moral law, manifested by the Creator himself through

the natural order and sculpted by Him in the hearts of the men with indelible

characters” (n. 17). And he continues: the moral law, whose observance must

be instilled and promoted by the public opinion of all nations and all States

with such unanimity of voice and strength, that no one can dare to doubt it or

weaken its obligatory force” (n. 17).

JOSÉ ANTONIO CALVO GÓMEZ

In the following articles, Pius XII developed ve principles that he con-

sidered fundamental to the reconstruction of the world order, destroyed by the

war, according to the natural structure, established by God, “essential precon-

ditions of an international order that, assuring to all peoples a just and lasting

peace, be fruitful in well-being and prosperity” (n. 18). These ve principles

are: freedom, integrity and security of the nations, large or small, regardless

of their extension or defensive capacity (n. 19); freedom for the cultural and

linguistic expression of the national minorities (n. 20); common access to the

planetʼs natural resources (n. 21); limitation of the arms race, beyond the le-

gitimate defense of the national limits, progressive and adequate reduction of

offensive weapons and construction of a true mutual trust between States with

the emergence of international institutions dedicated to ensure sincere compli-

ance with the treaties (n. 22); and religious freedom (n. 23).

The reality is that the horse of violence did not step back. World War II

continued devouring men and women, territories and borders; and all the ef-

forts seemed too few to limit its effects. Pius XII addressed several messages

in the long years of war to comfort the suffering people and, above all, to

propose a just and denitive solution. If in 1941, he tried to establish some

principles for international relations, in 1942 Christmas Radio Message he

wanted to go further and indicated some norms for the internal order of States

and peoples.

This double proposal was based on the following precondition set out by

the Pope:

The international relations and internal order are closely linked, because

the balance and harmony between the nations depend on the internal balance

and inner maturity of each one of the States in the material, social and intellec-

tual eld. Neither is it possible to realize a solid and undisturbed front of peace

outside without a front of peace inside that inspires condence. Therefore, only

the aspiration for an integral peace in the two elds will be able to free people

from the cruel threat of war, gradually diminish or overcome the material and

psychological causes of new imbalances and convulsions (n. 4).

In article 34, the Pope Pius XII presented the ve “military stones, sculpt-

ed with a chisel made of bronze”, the ve fundamental instruments to build

peace: dignity and rights of the human person, that he specied as follows:

The right to maintain and develop the bodily, intellectual and moral life, and

particularly the right to a religious formation and education; the right to private

THE ENCOUNTER AS A REAL POSSIBILITY. THE THEOREM OF ABRAHAM

and public cult of God, including religious charitable action; the right […] to

marriage and achievement of its own purpose, the right to marital and domes-

tic society; the right to work as an indispensable means for the maintenance of

family life; the right to free choice of state; therefore, also of the priestly and

religious state; the right to an use of the material goods aware of their duties and

social limitations.

And he continues: defense of the social unity and, in particular, of the

family; the dignity and prerogatives of work; the reintegration of the legal

system; and the conception of the State according to Christian principles, not

as a theocracy, alien to the thought of the Church, but as a State at the service

of the society and of the person. That is why the Pope launches a harsh attack

on the war:

This world war and everything related to it, whether remote or immedi-

ate, and its proceedings and material, legal and moral effects, what else does it

represent but the collapse, unexpected perhaps for the carefree, but foreseen and

feared by those who with their eyes penetrated to the bottom of a social order

that, under the deceptive face or the mask of conventional formulas, hid their

fatal weakness and their unbridled instinct of gain and power? (n. 37).

The construction of peace, the Pope concludes, will require the union

of all the peoples, the union of weapons, it could be said, and the creation

of a world political authority that, as we know, will made concrete, above

all, in the texts of his successors: John XXIII (Pacem in terris, year 1963, n.

136-141); Benedict XVI (Caritas in veritate, year 2009, n. 67) and Francisco

(Laudato siʼ, 2015, n. 175). John XXIII expressly recalled n. 19 of the 1941

Radio Message (Pacem in terris, n. 124). Pope Roncalli, in 1963, added: “The

meaning of this principle is that no nation has the right to unfairly oppress oth-

ers or to unduly intervene in its affairs. On the contrary, it is essential that all

provide help to the others, so that the latter acquire an increasing awareness of

their own duties, undertake new and useful companies and act as protagonists

of their own development in all sectors” (n. 120).

There was still a step further: the reception by the leaders of the nations

of this peace proposal for Europe and, by extension, for all the nations of

the Earth. There was probably a bridge that facilitated the understanding of

the Social Doctrine of the Church among the national leaders in Europe. The

Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), of Protestant origin, mar-

ried to a Jewish woman of Russian origin, synthesized in his work some of the

JOSÉ ANTONIO CALVO GÓMEZ

best intuitions of contemporary Catholic thought, in accordance with his read-

ing of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Uncomfortable for many, especially because

of his condemnation of European regimes, including communism, the Vichy

government, Nazi national socialism, and the positions of Franco and Queipo

de Llano in Spain, he was, however, one of those who best translated the work

of Leo XIII, Pius XI and Pius XII on the common good and peace. For Marit-

ain, democracy, in a contemporary sense, the unity and freedom of the nations,

should be the translation to the political regime, of the law of Christian charity.

The European leaders Robert Schuman (1883-1963), Konrad Adenauer

(1876-1967) and Alcide de Gasperi (1881-1954), along with Jean Monnet

(1888-1979), all of them Catholics, put this thought into practice in building

peace. The European Union, after seventy years, despite its difculties, is the

best realization of the thought of Pius XII and his predecessors, Leo XIII and

Pius XI, with whom, as we have said, Cardinal Pacelli collaborated closely.

4. the solution to A new violenCe. the theorem oF AbrAhAm

We reach the end of our essay in which we seek a solution to the non-struc-

tural rupture between the three great monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christian-

ity and Islam. Twentieth century war found a solution in the words of Pius XI,

Pius XII and his successors in Peterʼs chair. In the 21st century, there is a new

form of violence in our small world which seeks to destroy the path travelled.

The recovery of the sense of the transcendent, revealed by current socio-

logical analysis, although good in itself, may have led, as an unwanted conse-

quence, to the entrenchment of the positions and the growth of religious fun-

damentalism. This radicalization is recognized not only in the Muslim world,

which would seem evident after the attacks in Europe and the United States;

but is discovered also, to a certain degree, in the different Christian confessions

and Judaism, both Israelite and the diaspora. This fundamentalist radicalization

demands a new reection, forces us to deepen the analysis of rupture and, above

all, to nd new solutions. As far as this essay is concerned, leaving for others the

analysis of the rupture, we want to present, in conclusion, a solution: to return to

the origin of the unity, to Abraham’s theorem: that peace is possible.

The answer does not seek to obscure the complexity of the starting posi-

tion, that is of the rupture. More complete analysis of contemporary social

reality and the new racial segregation would be necessary; of the migratory

THE ENCOUNTER AS A REAL POSSIBILITY. THE THEOREM OF ABRAHAM

movements, which cause the rise of xenophobia; of the economic structure of

nations and relocation of power centers, which leads the population to fear for

their professional future; of the limits of the legitimate defense of territories

and the escalation of violence at national borders; of the threat of nuclear war.

Certainly, it is not possible, nor desirable, to blur diverse and legitimate

theological interpretations. Dialogue demands well-dened, contrasted theo-

logical positions sustained by each tradition: Masorti, Haredi, Hasidic, Mit-

nagdim or Sephardic; Catholic, Evangelical, Anglican or Orthodox; Shiite,

Su, Kharijite or Sunni. It is not about underestimating the differences, but of

seeing them as a richness in the confession of the God of Abraham, father in

the faith of all these believers.

It would be irrational if, in the dialogue, so as not to hurt the sensitivities

of interlocutors, there was a renunciation of oneʼs expression of faith. Mutatis

mutandis, it would be like giving up eating so as not to offend those who,

whether by tradition or personal choice, have different food tastes. The body

would die. Similarly, if the soul did not feed, it would die. But this diverse and

legitimate interpretation of the revelation of God, the Almighty, the Merciful,

cannot become a cause of violence and, on occasion, to force the brother to

embrace an interpretation of the revelation that unlocks his conscience.

Abraham’s theorem has two fundamental starting hypotheses: the active

construction of peace and renunciation of the sonʼs death. That is, to achieve

peace, you have to build peace.

The Judeo-Christian bible (Gen 14,7-20) gathers the rst part of this theo-

rem at the end of an act of the war against the enemies of Abraham, still with

his primitive name: Abram, with the meaning of an excellent father, a power-

ful father. The text says:

After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with

him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the

King’s Valley). Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine.

He was priest of the God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying: “Blessed be

Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God

Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand”. Then Abram gave him

a tenth of everything.

In the ancient Torah tradition, Godʼs blessing could be based on a long

life and the death of his enemies. However, Melchizedek, king of Salem,

who many have identied with Jerusalem, the city of the peace, blessed

JOSÉ ANTONIO CALVO GÓMEZ

Abraham for being faithful to the Creator; and he delivered him the tenth

of his spoils, that is, he handed him the means to build the peace. Abraham

wanted Melchizedek, priest of God Most High, to exercise his ministry in the

construction of the peace. Today it would not be difcult to interpret this pas-

sage in terms of active policies in favor of

peace, social promotion and justice

among the nations. Peace is actively built recognizing my leading role and

limiting the causes of

war: inequality, injustice and envy, among others.

A little further on, the Torah narrates the strange request that God makes

to Abraham, whose name he had already changed to the father of multitudes:

“Deliver me your son”. Genesis says (22,1-8):

After these events, God tested Abraham. God said: “Take your only son,

whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah and sacrice him there as a

burnt offering on a mountain I will show you”. Abraham got up early, loaded his

donkey and took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac; when he had cut

wood for the burnt offering and he set out for the place God had told him about.

The text continues: “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw

the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the

donkey; I and the boy

will go over there and worship and come again to you.”

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and

he took in his hand the re and the knife. So, they went both of them together.

And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am,

my son.” He said, “Behold, the re and the wood, but where is the lamb for a

burnt offering?”

Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a

burnt offering, my son.” So, “they went both of them together.”

It is true that the tradition of the Koran includes a different version, where

the protagonist of the story, along with Ibrahim, is his son Ishmael (Surah

37, verses 102-111). But, the meaning is the same: it is Godʼs request for the

sonʼs sacrice and, above all, the son’s rescue. It is not necessary, God tells

him, to deliver your son to be faithful to my word. God has destroyed the old

sacrices. Death and violence are no longer necessary to placate God. Today

even the expiatory sacrices are not celebrated in the Temple of Jerusalem,

after the destruction of the year 70; and neither are those offerings for which

the rstborn son was rescued.

Signicantly, although the Koran does not include the substitution for the

lamb, in the transposition of ideas that took place in Antiquity, Muslims main-

tain the Eid al-Adha, the Festival of the Lamb, on the tenth day of the month of

THE ENCOUNTER AS A REAL POSSIBILITY. THE THEOREM OF ABRAHAM

Zil-Hajj, the seventy days of Eid al-Firt, to remember that God did not claim

Ishmaelʼs life. He did not want the son delivered to show him faithfulness.

God does not want the death of the son. Neither does he want the death of the

enemy. This is the Abrahamʼs theorem.

We know how the story ends (Gen 22,9-14):

When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the

altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on

the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the

knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven

and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” The angel ordered

him, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know

that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from

me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a

ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and

offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So, Abraham called the name

of that place, “The Lord will provide”;

as it is said to this day, “On the mount of

the Lord it shall be provided.”

In Jerusalem, on the Mount Moriah, God continues to say to his children:

do not lay the hand against the boy. Your son doesnʼt have to die to prove that

you love me.

5. ConClusion. BaCk to Jerusalem

If Jerusalem is the city of peace, there must also be the peace. It is the key

of the peace. Abraham is the father of Ishmael and Isaac, of Muslims, Jews

and Christians. These three religions represent almost half of the worldʼs pop-

ulation. In any case, they represent the majority of

believers. From them, from

the children of Abraham, from whom he gave his goods so that peace could

be built, from whom he received the rescued son, comes the proposal of peace

for humanity. Today, the children should not miss their origin, the reason for

being, in their father Abraham, the father of peace. This solution is to be found

in Jerusalem, where God did not want Abraham to offer his son in sacrice.

Where Melchizedek, king of Salem, maintains, forever, the cause of peace.

JOSÉ ANTONIO CALVO GÓMEZ

6. reFerenCes

Fukuyama, Y. F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York-London:

Free Press.

Fukuyama, Y. F. (2004). State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st

Century. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.

Fukuyama, Y. F. (2018). Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resent-

ment. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Huntington, S. P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Or-

der. Ney York: Simon & Schuster.

Huntington, S. P. (2004). Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Iden-

tity. Ney York: Simon & Schuster.

Hobsbawm, E. J. E. (1962). The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848. London: Wei-

denfeld & Nicolson.

Hobsbawm, E. J. E. (1975). The Age of Capital: 1848-1875. London: Weidenfeld &

Nicolson.

Hobsbawm, E. J. E. (1987). The Age of Empire: 1875-1914. London: Weidenfeld &

Nicolson.

Hobsbawm, E. J. E. (1994). The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-

1991. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Maritain, J. (1945). Principes D’une Politique Humaniste. Paris: Paul Hartmann.

Maritain, J. (1947). Les droits de l’homme et la Loi naturelle. Paris: Paul Hartmann.

Maritain, J. (1951). Man and The State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Maritain, J. (1952). The Range of Reason. New York: Scribner.

THE CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER DIPLOMACY:

A NEW DIPLOMATIC PERSPECTIVE

FOR THE 21

CENTURY

mArio torres JArrín

1. introduCtion

Fabio Petito & Scott M. Thomas in their article “Encounter, dialogue, and

knowledge: Italy as a special case of religious engagement in foreign policy”

write that since the nineties, the study of religions has begun to be included

in the foreign policy and diplomatic training of several states, including the

United States, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, as well as the European

Union. This group of states consider it necessary to know the different reli-

gions existing in the world to be able to understand better countriesʼ culture

and traditions. The knowledge of the other can obviously help solve most cur-

rent conicts: armed, political, social, environmental, etc.

Many times, the solution of a conict has been sought without consid-

ering the culture and traditions of the people involved. On other occasions,

attempts have been made to impose a completely different way of seeing and

facing life both personally and socially on populations that have another cul-

ture, traditions or religion.

Pope Francisʼ concept “Culture of Encounter” is both a theoretical and

practical concept, a means to seek mutual understanding between peoples in

order to achieve peace in our societies and in the world, a proposal based on

the need to know each other better, to look for and appreciate the existing val-

ues in every culture, and to identify the common points which can be shared

MARIO TORRES JARRÍN

as a set of universal values and principles. The best possible instrument for

getting to know other cultures is dialogue. The interfaith dialogue intensively

promoted by the Catholic Church, as well as by some other religions, is a good

meeting point for various cultures.

This chapter will consider two processes of interreligious dialogue: the

Jewish-Catholic and the Muslim-Catholic as case studies and will seek to an-

swer the following questions: What is the culture of encounter? How can the

culture of encounter be a solution to armed conicts and promote peace? How

can the culture of encounter be a new diplomatic perspective for the 21

cen-

tury?

The conclusion of the answers to these questions is that the experienc-

es developed in the encounters between Catholics, Jews and Muslims have

helped shape the content of the culture of encounter. These three religions

have three elements in common: rst, the three religions believe in only one

God; second, the believers of these religions have a common history, since the

three come from a common father, Abraham, the “father of all nations”; third,

the three religions defend and promote peace among all the peoples on earth.

Interreligious dialogues can serve as a basis to create, develop and pro-

mote a new way of conceiving international relations, through the culture of

encounter. If we consider that several world powers are incorporating consid-

eration of the religious component into their international relations; and if we

also consider the culture of encounter as a valid experience for peace promo-

tion, then we can conclude that the culture of encounter can be a new way of

conceiving international relations, and whose application can contribute to

solve conicts and achieve peace. The experience of the culture of encounter

can contribute to a new dimension of the 21

century diplomacy which we can

call: “The Culture of Encounter Diplomacy”.

2. reliGion And diPlomACy

In the modern history of international relations, the idea has prevailed

that religion is not a public matter. Relegated to the sphere of individual

conscience, religion has been expelled from the political and social sphere,

as the principle of separation between church and state, on the one hand, and

ideas of secularism and non-denominationality, on the other, developed and

extended.

THE CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER DIPLOMACY: A NEW DIPLOMATIC PERSPECTIVE ...

Petito & Thomas in their above-mentioned article indicate that this ten-

dency has started to be reversed, that is, religion is once again part of foreign

policy. Diplomats and experts in international relations have concluded that

in order to understand a political or international situation it is necessary to

know the cultural, traditional, religious and customary elements prevalent or

present in it. Both authors point out that religions not only have played an im-

portant role in the development of societies, but they still do, and studying and

understanding them can contribute to creating more lasting bonds over time

favoring stability and peace.

As these authors also point out, Religion, the Missing Dimension of State-

craft (Johnson and Sampson, 1994) was the rst of the books that address

the need to study the relationship between religion and foreign policy. For

Johnson and Sampson, international conicts are increasingly based on racial,

ethnic, national and religious confrontations which conventional diplomacy

has failed to solve. Since then a trend has developed involving more coun-

tries. The rst was the United States. In 2006, the former US Secretary of

State Madeleine Albright argued: “When I was Secretary of State, I had an

entire bureau of economic experts I could turn to, and a cadre of experts on

nonproliferation and arms control… I did not have similar expertise available

for integrating religious principles into our efforts at diplomacy. Given nature

of today`s world, knowledge of this type is essential” (Albright, 2006; Petito

& Thomas, 2015).

The authors say also that, in 2008, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs

created the Task Force on Religion and the Making of US Foreign Policy,

co-chaired by Scott Appleby and Richard Cizik, which published in 2010 an

inuential policy report titled “Engaging Religious Communities Abroad: A

New Imperative for U.S. Foreign Policy”. Some years later, between 2011-

2013, the US State Department created an internal Religion and Foreign Pol-

icy Working Group and its reports created in 2013 the Ofce of Faith-Based

Community Initiatives, whose mission is to implement a new “U.S. Strategy

on Religious leader and Faith Community Engagement”. In 2015, the State

Department renamed the Ofce as the Ofce of Religion and Global Affairs

(Petito & Thomas, 2015, 41).

This new US policy has emphasized the need to understand the political

role of religion in international affairs, and highlights the fact, already men-

tioned, that other countries, like the UK, Italy and France are following suit.

Even the European Union has begun to develop its own approach to religion

MARIO TORRES JARRÍN

and international relations, using intercultural dialogue as an instrument (An-

nicchino, 2014). On the other hand, it is worth noting that the European Union

treaties include the promotion of dialogue between the European Union and

the different religions that inhabit the Union space. Article 17 of the Treaty on

the Functioning of the European Union says:

The Union respects and does not prejudice the status under national law

of churches and religious associations or communities in the Member States.

The Union equally respects the status under national law of philosophical and

non-confessional organizations. Recognizing their identity and their specic

contribution, the Union shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue

with these churches and organizations (Art 17 TFEU).

Within the European Commission presided by Jean-Claude Juncker, we

can identify the following responsible for promoting dialogue with religions:

Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, whose du-

ties include dialogue with religious leaders. The Vice President of the Euro-

pean Parliament, Mairead McGuinnes, in charge of dialogue with religious

and non-confessional organizations. She also coordinates the works of the

“Intergroup on freedom of Religion and Belief and Religious Tolerance”. Fi-

nally, the Special Envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief

outside the European Union, Ján Figel.

3. PoPeFrancisʼsProPosal:TheculTureoFencounTer

On March 22, 2013, Pope Francis gave his rst speech to the diplomatic

corps accredited to the Holy See. Three points from this intervention should

be highlighted. The rst two are related to the motives why he chose the name

Francis, and the third to his role as Pontiff (bridge builder):

1. Francis of Assisiʼs love for the poor. Pope Francis points out that there

two types of poverty: material and spiritual. He seems very concerned

about “the spiritual poverty of our day, which also seriously affects

the countries considered the richest. It is what my predecessor, the

beloved and revered Pope Benedict XVI, calls the “dictatorship of

relativism”.

2. Francis of Assisi says: “Strive to build peace. But there is no true peace

without truth. There can be no true peace if each one is the measure of

THE CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER DIPLOMACY: A NEW DIPLOMATIC PERSPECTIVE ...

himself, if each one can always claim only his own right, without wor-

rying at the same time about the good of others, for all, starting with

nature, that embraces every human being on this earth”.

3. Pope Francis reminds us that one of his titles as bishop of Rome is

“Pontiff”, which means “the one who builds bridges”. In this regard,

he points out:

I would particularly like the dialogue between us to help in building bridges

between all men, so that each one could nd in the other not an enemy, not a

contender, but a brother to welcome and embrace. The role of the religion is also

essential in this task. Indeed, bridges cannot be built between men forgetting

God. But the opposite is also true: true relationships with God cannot be lived

ignoring

others. That is why it is important to intensify the dialogue between

different religions (Francis, 2013a).

Given that his speech was addressed to diplomats, we can deduce that

Pope Francisʼs intention was that these representatives of states should listen

to his message and try to put it into practice when dealing with foreign policy,

establishing as part of their priorities: ghting against poverty (material and

spiritual), promoting interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding.

A few days prior to this meeting with diplomats, on March 20, 2013, Pope

Francis had an encounter with representatives of churches, ecclesiastic com-

munities and various religions, where he underlined the Jewish-Catholic and

Muslim-Catholic interfaith dialogues. In relationship with the rst, he said:

And now my words are addressed to you, distinguished representatives of

the Jewish people, to that very special spiritual bond which unites us, because,

as the Second Vatican Council says, “the Church of Christ recognizes that, ac-

cording to the saving mystery of God, the beginnings of their faith and choice are

already found in the patriarchs, in Moses and in the prophets” (Nostra aetate 4). I

appreciate your presence and I am condent that, with the help of the Most High,

we can continue with benet this fraternal dialogue that the Council wanted, and

that has actually been carried out, giving not a few fruits, especially over the last

decades.

And then he turned to the representatives of other faiths, and in rst place

to the Muslims:

I also greet and cordially thank all of you, dear friends, belonging to other

religious traditions; in the rst place, Muslims, who worship the only, living and

MARIO TORRES JARRÍN

merciful God, and invoke him in prayer, and to all of you. I greatly appreciate

your presence: in it I see a tangible sign of the will to increase mutual respect and

cooperation for the common good of humanity. The Catholic Church is aware

of the importance of promoting friendship and respect between men and women

of different religious traditions, I want to repeat it: the promotion of friendship

and respect between men and women of various religious traditions, this is also

witnessed by the valuable work that the Pontical Council for the Interreligious

Dialogue develops (Francis, 2013a).

It is not surprising that the Pope privileges dialogue with Jews and Mus-

lims, since they have a common origin: “Abraham, our father in the faith”

(Lumen dei 8).

In the encyclical letter, Lumen dei, Francis reminds us:

In “modernity” attempts have been made to build universal fraternity among

men based on equality. Little by little, however, we have come to understand that

this fraternity, without reference to a common Father as the ultimate foundation,

cannot survive. It is necessary to return to the true root of fraternity. From its

very origin, the history of faith is a history of fraternity, although not without

conicts. God calls Abraham to leave his land and promises to make from him a

single great nation, a great people, upon which the blessing of God descends (cf.

Gen 12,1-3) (Lumen dei 54).

In order to understand the concept of “culture of encounter”, we should

consider these terms and analyze their meanings separately: Culture can be

dened by the ensemble of material and immaterial elements, including val-

ues and rules, beliefs and customs that shape the way of life of a social group.

Encounter means the action of two or more people meeting of their own free

will with a specic purpose, which implies to talk or to do something together

and the beginning of a new relationship.

When Pope Francis talks about creating, developing and sharing a culture

of encounter, he is talking about translating to the public sphere a common hu-

man action, trying to conceive a new form of international relations built from

this human perspective, which consists in listening, knowing and understand-

ing the other who may think differently, who has a different vision of life, but

who shares the same hope of being respected. Unlike traditional international

relations mainly developed from a perspective of national interests, whether

military, political or economic, Pope Francis proposes a new more generous

and ethical diplomatic approach: the encounter.

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This proposal represents the continuation of an endeavor that Pope Fran-

cis began as a young Jesuit in Argentina, whose pastoral work taught him that

the rst –and perhaps also the best– way to help others is to listen and try to

understand the life and needs of the people. The social work that he began as

a priest, soon incorporated the interfaith dialogue with Jews and Muslims, an

experience that little by little was extrapolated in his eld of action, rstly,

when he was appointed bishop and then archbishop of Buenos Aires, subse-

quently cardinal and now Pope of the Catholic Church.

Francis presents us with cultural and social change based on the encoun-

ter among cultures. The interreligious dialogue is a perfect mechanism to cre-

ate this new culture. Better knowledge, understanding and cooperation of and

among religions, and their subsequent and benecial relationship, can only

have a positive impact on international relations, rst by preventing, then by

helping resolve the main global problems, conicts and challenges of our time,

not only those originating in interreligious misunderstanding and confronta-

tion, but also those originating in poverty, climate change and other causes.

4. the Culture oF the enCounter between Jews And CAtholiCs

The declaration Nostra aetate is a document of the Vatican Council II on

the Catholic Churchʼs relations with the non-Christian religions, including

Judaism.

The rst steps of the Jewish-Catholic dialogue were initiated under the

ponticate of Pope Paul VI, on October 22, 1974. He created the Commission

for Religious Relations with Jews, attached to the Pontical Council for the

Promotion of the Unity of Christians. The objective of this Commission is

linked to the promotion of the Jewish-Catholic dialogue. In 1974 the Commis-

sion published the rst ofcial document entitled: Guidelines and suggestions

for the application of the conciliar declaration Nostra aetate n. 4. The docu-

ment says that: “On a practical level, in particular, Christians should strive to

gain a better understanding of the basic components of the religious tradition

of Judaism; they must strive to learn by what essential traits the Jews dene

themselves in the light of their own religious experience” (Commission for

Religious Relations with the Jews, 1974). Similarly, the document also recalls

that the roots of the Christian liturgy and Old Testament teachings in their

womb are Jewish. This fact can be a meeting point between both cultures, an

MARIO TORRES JARRÍN

approach that can help develop joint actions in the areas of teaching, education

and social action.

On June 24, 1985, the Holy See Commission published a second docu-

ment entitled: Notes for a proper presentation of Jews and Judaism in preach-

ing and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church.

On March 16, 1998, the Commission publishes a third document entitled:

We remember: a reection on the Shoah. This text addresses the 2000 years

of relationship between Jews and Christians, the document concludes by say-

ing that relations between both religions have been difcult. It memorizes the

attitude of Christians towards the anti-Semitism of National Socialism and

underlines the Christian duty to remember the Shoah as a human catastrophe.

Pope John Paul II expressed his hope that this document Truly contributes to

healing the wounds of the misunderstandings and injustices of the past (John

Paul II, 1998).

Among the documents issued by the Commission, is worth mentioning

the one published by the Pontical Biblical Commission, on May 24, 2001:

Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible. The docu-

ment considers the Holy Scriptures of the Jewish People as the “fundamental

component of the Christian Bible” and illustrates the manner in which to pre-

sent the Jews in the New Testament.

John Paul II continued the work of his predecessors promoting the Jew-

ish-Catholic dialogue and sought a greater rapprochement with the Jewish

people through concrete actions. For example, he was the rst Pope who vis-

ited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, prayed for the victims of

the Shoah and went to the Roman synagogue to express his solidarity with

the Jewish community. In 2000, he made a trip to Israel where he participated

in interfaith encounters, met with the two chief rabbis and prayed before the

Wailing Wall (or, as the Jewish texts say, Western Wall of the Temple). Dur-

ing his visit, he urged the promotion of dialogue between the three religions:

Judaism, Christianity and Islam:

I pray that my visit will contribute to increasing the dialogue that will lead

Christians, Hebrews and Muslims to individualize in their respective beliefs and

in the universal brotherhood that unite all the members of the human family, the

motivation and perseverance to act in favor of that peace and justice, that the

peoples of the Holy Land do not yet possess and yearn for so deeply (La Nación,

2000).

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On his behalf, the Israeli president, Ezer Weizman, highlighted the visit

of the Pope saying: “We appreciate your role in the condemnation of anti-

Semitism as a sin against Heaven and Humanity, and your asking for forgive-

ness for the actions against the Jewish people perpetrated in the past by the

Church (referring to the Catholic Church)” (La Nación, 2000).

Pope Benedict XVI was another great promoter of Jewish-Catholic dia-

logue before becoming Pope. As a university professor he devoted part of his

studies to interreligious and cultural dialogue as the basis for the promotion

world peace. Judaism should not be considered simply as another religion; the

Jews are rather our “older brothers” (John Paul II), our “fathers in the faith”

(Benedict XVI). Jesus was a Jew, who felt at home following the Jewish tradi-

tion of his time, signicantly formed in that religious environment (Ecclesia

in Medio Oriente 20).

In Benedict XVIʼs mind an important goal of the Jewish-Christian dia-

logue was the joint commitment at global level in favor of justice, peace, pres-

ervation of the creation and reconciliation. It is possible that in the past –in a

context of reductive search for truth and consequent intolerance– religious dif-

ferences could have contributed to generate conict. But today religions have

to be envisaged mainly as part of the solution. When religions are committed

to a mutually benecial dialogue, they contribute to world concordance and

peace can also reach social and political levels (Jewish People and their Holy

Scriptures in the Christian Bible).

Francis has continued the work of his predecessors, promoting interfaith

dialogue. As earlier indicated, Francis had already started his own pastoral

work in these areas, when he was priest, bishop and archbishop in Argentina.

Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio dedicated himself to fostering the Jewish-Cath-

olic and Muslim-Catholic dialogue.

It is interesting to note that there are several types of communities within

Judaism, and since the Catholic Church cannot maintain bilateral dialogue

with each of those Jewish communities, groups and organizations, it was de-

cided that the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultation

(IJCIC) would develop the dialogue with the Catholic Church. The IJCIC acts

therefore as the ofcial Jewish interlocutor with the Commission of the Holy

See for Religious Relations with Jews. The IJCIC began its work in 1970, and

in 1971 organized its rst joint conference in Paris. Since then, the meetings

have been held frequently.

MARIO TORRES JARRÍN

Along with the dialogue with the IJCIC, there is also a dialogue with the

Great Rabbinate of Israel, a resulted of the encounter of John Paul II with the

two Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem,

during his visit to Israel in March 2000. The

rst meeting was organized in Jerusalem in June 2002. Since then meetings

have been held annually, taking place alternately in Rome and Jerusalem. Is-

sues like the sanctity of life, the situation of the family, the importance of the

Holy Scriptures for social life, religious freedom, the ethical foundations of

human behavior, ecological challenges, the relationship between secular and

religious authorities and the essential qualities of religious leadership in secular

societies have been part of the topics included in the Jewish-Catholic dialogue,

oriented to develop relations based on this dialogue for the promotion of peace,

understanding and mutual respect. After each encounter a joint declaration is

produced in which the points of agreement between the parties are made public.

The last encounter between Jews and Christians was held in Rome during

November 18 to 20, 2018. The sixteenth meeting of the bilateral Commis-

sion of the delegations of the Grand Rabbinate of Israel and the Commission

of the Holy See for the Religious Relations with Judaism, was focused on:

The dignity of the human being. Teachings of Judaism and Catholicism about

children.

Extending the culture of encounter to the broad social bases of both com-

munities, Christian and Jewish, beyond the actors of the dialogue is one of the

great challenges in the relations between both religions. The dialogue between

the religious leaders is important, but “the knowledge of the other” must ex-

pand to the whole community of both religions.

The encyclical letter of Pope Francis, Evangelii gaudium, states that:

While some Christian convictions are unacceptable to Judaism, and the

Church cannot fail to announce Jesus as Lord and Messiah, a rich complement

exists that allows us to read together the texts of the Hebrew Bible and help each

other to unravel the riches of the Word, as well as to share many ethical con-

victions and a common concern for the justice and development of the peoples

(Evangelii gaudium 249).

5. the Culture oF enCounter between muslims And CAtholiCs

In 1964 Paul VI created the Secretariat for non-Christians. This would

be the precursor institution of the current Pontical Council for Interreligious

THE CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER DIPLOMACY: A NEW DIPLOMATIC PERSPECTIVE ...

Dialogue. The relations between Catholics and Muslims are the responsibil-

ity of the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims, which is part of

the Pontical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, created by John Paul II, in

1988, through the apostolic constitution Pastor bonus.

The Council has created the Foundation Nostra aetate-Scholarships in or-

der to help scholars of other religions who wish to deepen their knowledge of

Christianity for teaching, publishing or other activities related to the interfaith

dialogue.

Since the creation of the Commission to date there have been held fre-

quent meetings. The last ofcial encounter between Muslims and Catholics

took place in Abu Dhabi, on February 4, 2019, whose result was the joint

declaration entitled: A document on the Human Fraternity for World Peace

and Living Together, signed by Pope Francis and The Grand Iman of Al-Azhar

Ahmad Al-Tayyeb. This document says:

We, Muslims and Christians, are called to open up to others, knowing them

and recognizing them as brothers and sisters. In this way, we can tear down the

walls raised by fear and ignorance and try to build together the bridges of friend-

ship that are fundamental to the good of the whole of humanity. We cultivate in

our families and in our political, civil and religious institutions, a new way of

life, in which violence is rejected, and the human person is respected (A docu-

ment on the Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, 2019).

2019 is a fairly signicant year in the history of the Catholic-Muslim

relations, as Pope Francis highlighted in his apostolic trip to the United Arab

Emirates on 3-5 February 2019. He recalled that this year celebrated the

Eighth centenary of the encounter between Saint Francis of Assisi and Sultan

al-Malik al-Kāmil: “I have accepted the occasion to come here as a believer

thirsty for peace, as a brother who seeks peace with brothers. Wanting peace,

promoting peace, being instruments of peace: we are here for this” (Francis,

2019a).

During his visit to the United Arab Emirates, Pope Francis met with

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktum, with Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyib, Great

Imam of Al-Azhar, and with the Council of Elders in the Great Mosque of

Sheikh Zayed. The visit ended with the signing of the Abu Dhabi Declaration

on human fraternity. Francis highlights the following points of his visit to Abu

Dhabi:

MARIO TORRES JARRÍN

The point of departure is the recognition that God is at the origin of one

human family. He who is the Creator of all things and of all persons wants us to

live as brothers and sisters, dwelling in the common home of creation which he

has given us. Fraternity is established here at the roots of our common humanity,

as “a vocation contained in God’s plan of creation”. This tells us that all persons

have equal dignity and that no one can be a master or slave of others.

The enemy of fraternity is an individualism which translates into the desire

to afrm oneself and one’s own group above others.

As for the future of interreligious dialogue, the rst thing we have to do is

pray, and pray for one another: we are brothers and sisters! Without the Lord,

nothing is possible; with him, everything becomes so! May our prayer –each one

according to his or her own tradition – adhere fully to the will of God, who wants

all men and women to recognize they are brothers and sisters and live as such,

forming the great human family in the harmony of diversity (Francis, 2019a).

To all this, we should add the emphasis placed on the importance of edu-

cation and justice:

Education –in Latin means “extracting, drawing out”– is to bring to light

the precious resources of the soul. […] Education also happens in a relationship,

in reciprocity. Alongside the famous ancient maxim “know yourself”, we must

uphold “know your brother or sister”: their history, their culture and their faith,

because there is no genuine self-knowledge without the other.

Investing in culture encourages a decrease of hatred and a growth of civility

and prosperity.

Justice is the second wing of peace, which often is not compromised by

single episodes, but is slowly eaten away by the cancer of injustice.

Peace and justice are inseparable! The prophet Isaiah says: “And the effect

of righteousness will be peace” (32,17). Peace dies when it is divorced from

justice, but justice is false if it is not universal. A justice addressed only to family

members, compatriots, believers of the same faith is a limping justice; it is a

disguised injustice!

The world’s religions also have the task of reminding us that greed for prot

renders the heart lifeless and that the laws of the current market, demanding

everything immediately, do not benet encounter, dialogue, family – essential

dimensions of life that need time and patience (Francis, 2019a).

Francis concludes his intervention by saying that the Abu Dhabi Joint

Declaration is a document that “is born of faith in God who is Father of all

and Father of peace, and condemns all destruction, all terrorism, since the rst

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terrorism of history, that of Cain” (Francis, 2019a). The Pope also spoke of the

importance of developing within diplomacy;

the search for the “closeness to

each other in order to launch possibilities for dialogue. This is done in diplo-

macy (he afrmed). Because peace is a work of wisdom and delity, human

delity, among the peoples” (Francis, 2019b).

6. ConClusions

Religion has always been a factor of identity, since it has played a deter-

mining role in creating cultural values and in shaping a specic way of seeing

life and facing it. But the identity based on religion has a specic dimension.

Although in its identitarian aspect religion is an element of distinction

and differentiation, the aspect of faith provides also a factor of union, not only

with those sharing the same religion, but also with those whose identity is

based on another faith and different beliefs. The three religions aspire to the

knowledge of God and the union of all human beings with their Creator. This

common aspiration generates –or should generate– a certain communion with

every human being, as created after Godʼs image and called to union with

Him. This sentiment, on the base of religion, makes “the other” not a stranger,

but a brother, since we are all part of the human family, Godʼs family: the

whole mankind. However religion is not the only factor of identity, there are

others like nations and states. The relationships among religions, nations and

states are complex.

The rst civilizations were created and developed on the pillar of a re-

ligion, but our current global societies have been built and are sustained on

the base of different faiths. This has generated numberless conicts. These

days we frequently use Huntingtonʼs terminology; of the clash of civiliza-

tions. Many wars have been declared in the name of religion. This is a great

paradox, since all religions, according to their essence, values and principles,

advocate peace.

In this regard, it would be convenient to make a brief reection on the

values we have used to build our current societies, and the concepts on which

we have laid the foundations of our coexistence as members of a cultural and

political entity: the Nation State.

The signing of the peace treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, called

“Peace of Westphalia” (1646-1648), convened the rst diplomatic congress

MARIO TORRES JARRÍN

in modern history. This encounter established a new order, rstly at European

level, then worldwide. There is a broad consensus recognizing Westfalia as

the birth of the so called Nation-State. The Nation is described as a group

of people supposed to have the same origin and the same traditional culture

(including religion). The State is dened as a sovereign country that is recog-

nized by the international order as a political entity established in a territory

and endowed with its own governing bodies.

From an etymological perspective, we can see some difculties. If a Na-

tion-State has to be a sovereign country that brings together people from the

same ethnic origin, with the same common language, and the same religion,

then we can easily conclude that there are very few Nation States in the world.

In the current international community of states, many of them do not

have the same ethnic origin or the same religion. Neither can we afrm that

they share a common language and even less the same culture. Modern socie-

ties tend more and more to be multicultural, multiracial and multilingual.

In geographical terms, all countries have modied their territory and bor-

ders –and some, many times– over the centuries.

The conclusion is clear: although States are still major players on the

chessboard of war and peace, there is a wider scenario whose actors are cul-

tures and civilizations.

The constitution of UNESCO includes the following paragraph:

That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that

the defences of peace must be constructed; […] That ignorance of each other’s

ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of

that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their

differences have all too often broken into war.

In other words, the attainment of peace cannot be limited to the borders

of states, just because these have often caused wars, nor to the decoy of the

nation, just because, as Rousseau says, wars are not made by man on man,

but by national on nations. We must now add war made by members of one

religion against members of another, as well as the “Clash of Civilizations”

(Huntington, 1996).

Peace has been traditionally conditioned by states, nations, civilizations

and religions, but cannot be limited to them. Peace needs to transcend them

to ourish in the eld of the human condition itself. Only in peace can human

beings meet and recognize each other as brothers. Only in peace can peoples

THE CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER DIPLOMACY: A NEW DIPLOMATIC PERSPECTIVE ...

be respected as friends and equals. Only with peace on earth can human be-

ings enjoy and care for nature and, through the love of nature, admire and feel

the entire universe and God.

If war is born in the mind of men, so is peace. If mutual misunderstand-

ing between people, distrust and suspicion among nations and disagreements

between political leaders lead to war, mutual understanding between peoples,

building trust and condence among nations and favoring accords between

responsible political and religious leaders must necessarily lead to peace. But,

to achieve this goal, the concept of encounter, particularly the encounter of

cultures and religions to build stronger condence and to create human har-

mony, is essential.

The goal is to create a world where all human beings can not only live to-

gether, but live together peacefully, where everyone is ready to understand and

accept one another not only to tolerate each other. Tolerating means accepting

without expressed approval, as someone not fully accepted. We should not

have religious tolerance only. What we should seek is to create a culture of

encounter, a natural human empathy, which allows us to know and understand

the world we live in and the people we live with in order to make everything

better together.

Dialogue is indispensable. But for this, we must build a new language,

based on the universal principles set forth by the different religions, which

have as one of their supreme values the promotion of human understanding.

God is in the name of all religions, since all religions express the only name of

God, and His name –never pronounced in vain–, should guide our words and

our language: a language of moderation and respect in order to help get the

fruits of the dialogue in the encounter.

Peace is born in the mind of the men, but grows and develops in their

words and in their deeds. We need words, language, dialogue of peace, in

peace and for peace. But we also need action.

First of all, we need every action to be understood as a personal commit-

ment to the values of our own conscience, according to the religious and moral

beliefs of each one, but always based on moderation, as an ethical expression

of respect for the other and sincerely oriented to a mutual understanding. This

personal commitment is of particular importance in the case of religious, so-

cial, cultural, political and diplomatic leaders. It is of extreme importance that

they add a strong and deep sense of responsibility to their high capacity of

inuence both with their words and their deeds.

MARIO TORRES JARRÍN

But, peace, as a universal value, has to be globalized in the same way the

world is. In fact, as essential components of every civilization, the concepts of

religion and peace transcend the framework of states and nations and demand

their world dimension.

But also, religious intolerance is global and is spreading everywhere.

Some of the greatest world threats are falsely involved in religious claims.

And this happens beyond the frontiers of any state and beyond the limits of

any nation. Therefore, an international platform for dialogue and encounter, as

global as possible, is needed.

It is important to remember that of the 7,408 million inhabitants in the

world, it is estimated that by 2020 there will be: 31.1% Christians, 24.9%

Muslims, 1% Jews (together they represent 57% of the world population),

14.6% identify as not afliated with any religion (they are not necessarily

atheists, they simply do not identify with any religion), 15.2% Hindu, 6.6%

Buddhist, 5.6% popular religions, and 1% other religions (Pew Research Re-

port on the Global Religious Landscape, 2019 ). According to the Pontical

Yearbook published in 2019, of the 7,408 million people worldwide, 1,313

million are Catholics. On the other hand, other sources estimate that 1,800

million people are Muslim, and 14, 6 million people are Jewish.

These numbers reveal that the vast majority of the world’s population

professes a religion and that religion plays an important role in world socie-

ties. But religions have not always been sources of war. They have also been

sources of human development. As the Pope John XXIII said in his Encyclical

Letter Pacem in terris: “It is about making grow a culture of peace founded

on the four pillars of truth, justice, love and freedom”. This culture of building

peace can be implemented through the “Culture of Encounter Diplomacy”.

The welcome initiative by countries like the US, the UK, and France,

among others, referred to above, to introduce the religious factor into the

analysis and design of foreign policy constitutes a realistic and important step

forward, but it not sufcient, it also has to be global.

But where to look to? The United Nations are plunged into a long, in-

soluble, anachronistic structural crisis, with the maximum guarantor of peace

worldwide, the Security Council, ideologically divided and politically and

economically challenged, and the General Assembly relegated to a second

rank of rhetoric and irrelevance.

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The Secretary General has incorporated the Alliance of Civilizations into

his institutional sphere of competences as an Ofce, but without the more

autonomous and relevant status of an Agency.

UNESCO seems to have a more obvious afnity with issues related to

religions and civilizations. In fact, in 1996, the World Commission on Culture

and Development published the report “Our creative diversity”, which subse-

quently served as the basis for the signing of UNESCOʼs Universal Declara-

tion on Cultural Diversity in 2001. Both documents evidenced the need for

understanding and cooperation among different religions and cultures.

The Vienna Center for Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue, (KAI-

CIID) created on initiative of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia with Austria and

Spain as full members and the Vatican as an observer, was an excellent project

that has achieved good results in various areas. But the very small number of

Member States, and Austriaʼs constant warnings of giving up its membership

have reduced its potential as a global actor.

The Catholic Church has many institutional actions that promote the in-

terreligious dialogue and peace. In institutional terms, the Pontical Council

for Interreligious Dialogue or initiatives as the World Days of Prayer for Peace

in Assisi, and lately, the Scholas Ocurrentes Foundation, that aims to foster

among young people a “Culture of Encounter”.

So far, the greatest impulse and the most important initiatives in the inter-

national sphere of interreligious dialogue have been carried out by the efforts

of the main religions, as we have seen. Due to their special nature, capable of

shaping civilizations, religions exceed political and national boundaries and

are obviously congured as supra-states and supra-nation spaces.

The Vatican, for instance, is a good example. Although it is a state and is

part of the International Community of States and has its own diplomatic ser-

vice, its institutional religious network, formal and informal, (communities,

congregations, religious institutes, social work agencies, foundations, univer-

sities, schools, training centers…), makes it a “member of civil society” in the

multiple countries where the Catholic faith is present and a “public diplomacy

actor” (Golan, Arceneaux & Soule, 2018)

As a conclusion: the vast majority of the worldʼs population professes

several religions and a global platform for interreligious dialogue, where reli-

gious and political leaders can meet and pursue dialogue, is urgently needed to

contribute to worldʼs peace. If there is an international organization for educa-

tion, science and culture (UNESCO), something similar should be created for

MARIO TORRES JARRÍN

civilizations and religions (The United Nations Civilizations and Religions-

UNCIREO).

7. reFerenCes

Albright, M. (2006). The Mighty and the Almighty. New York: Haper Collins.

Annicchino, P. (2014). “Is the European Union Going Deep on Democracy and

religious Fredom?”. The Review of Faith & International Affairs 12/3, 33-40.

Benedict XVI (2012). Post-synodal apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Medio Oriente.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-

xvi_exh_20120914_ecclesia-in-medio-oriente.html. Last accessed: 2019/09/23.

Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (1974). Guidelines and sugges-

tions for implementing the conciliar declaration Nostra aetate (n. 4), Holy See,

December 1, 1974.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-

docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19741201_nostra-aetate_en.html. Last accessed:

2019/09/23.

Communiqué of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC) on the

24th meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee, Rome,

May 13-16, 2019.

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/es/bollettino/pubblico/2019/05/17/

jew.html. Last accessed: 2019/09/23.

Francis (2013a). Audience with representatives of the Churches and Ecclesial Com-

munities and of the different religions. Address of the Holy Father Pope Francis,

March 20, 2013.

https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/march/documents/

papa-francesco_20130320_delegati-fraterni.html Last accessed: 2019/09/23.

Francis (2013b). Audience with the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See. Ad-

dress of Pope Francis, Holy See, March 22, 2013.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/march/documents/pa-

pa-francesco_20130322_corpo-diplomatico.html. Last accessed: 2019/09/23.

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TOWARDS A CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: ST.

FRANCIS, POPE FRANCIS, THE FRANCISCAN

TRADITION, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF

THE THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

sCott m. thomAs

Theodor W. Adorno formulated the problem of faith in progress quite dras-

tically: he said that progress, seen accurately, is progress from the sling to the

atomic bomb. Now this is an aspect of progress that must not be concealed [i.e.

slingshot used for war and hunting by Neolithic and Upper Paleolithic peoples].

Benedict XVI (2007). Spe Salvi: Encyclical letter on Christian Hope, 22.

Francis of Assisi is one of the most extraordinary examples of beauty cap-

tured and reected in a historical human gure. In St. Francis the power of beau-

ty shines… The greatest beauty is love. And love is the perfect unity of truth,

goodness, and beauty.

Alberto Methol Ferré and Alver Metalli (2014). Il Papa e il losofo.

Only the ‘attraction,’ the ‘Christian attractiveness’ of a Christianity lived

as a visible expression of the unity of the transcendentals – the beautiful, the

good, and the true – can assume the ideal of beauty, distorted by libertine hedon-

ism, and bring it back to truth. In this testimony, Methol identied the path of

1. In fact, Benedict XVI is paraphrasing Adorno, and the actual quotation reads (in English), “No

history leads from savagery to humanitarianism, but there is one that leads from the slingshot to the meg-

aton bomb.” Adorno, Theodor W. (1987) Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton. New York: Continuum

Press, 320. His analysis of critical theory, and Negative Dialectics continues in Spe Salvi, 42-43, and the

encyclical also develops the concept of “encounter” 15 times. See: Gad Y. (2014). “Pope Benedict XVI on

Instrumental Reason and the Hidden Theology of Critical Theory”. Oxford German Studies 43/2, 172-189.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

Christianity in the contemporary world, a way fully embraced by the sensibility

and the thinking of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Massimo Borghesi (2018) The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Ber-

goglio’s Intellectual Journey.

Francis of Assisi was more intuitive than analytical, but in his transforma-

tive life story, and those of his early followers what can be identied is a holis-

tic and integrative understanding of theology, spirituality (i.e. prayer, medita-

tion, and contemplation), and action – including those types of events, activi-

ties, and social actions that are the foundation for the study of international

relations. His story includes a variety of types of encounter which articulate

the basic elements of a radical, counter-cultural way St. Francis performed

the gospel life – encounter, conversion, knowledge, and transformation. This

constitutes a specic “way of seeing the world”, a holistic and integrative way

of bringing together theology, spirituality, and action in the world, including

the world of international relations.

The problem this poses for all of us who

seek to live faithfully and responsibly in the world was examined by Thomas

Merton, the Cistercian (Trappist) monk, with a Franciscan heart, at the dawn

of the nuclear age and the Cold War.

Furthermore, this understanding can also be seen in the theology, spir-

ituality, and pastoral practice of Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the variety of Ar-

gentine cities, villages, and communities he was based, and nally as Arch-

bishop of Buenos Aires before he was elected as Pope Francis, since it was

2. Methol Ferré, A. & Metalli. A. (2014). Il Papa e il losofo, Siena: Cantegalli, 158-159. In Borghesi,

M. The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Intellectual Journey, Foreword by Guzmán Car-

riquiry Lecour. (2018). Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic, 186. Borghesi is also the author of

a biography of Luigi Giussani, who founded the international Catholic movement Commune e Liberazi-

one (CeL). Kepel, G. (1994). The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in

the Modern World. Oxford: Polity Press, argues CeL has been one of the most successful grassroots move-

ments promoting, especially in Europe, “re-Christianization from below”, and then, “re-Christianization

from above”, 61-76. I rst reviewed this book in (1995). “The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Study

of World Politics”. Millennium: journal of international studies 24/2, 289-299.

3. These basic elements of a radical, counter-cultural way St. Francis performed the gospel life are

set out in Thomas, S. M. (2018). “St. Francis and Islam: A Critical Appraisal for Contemporary, Muslim

– Christian Relations, Middle East Politics and, International Relations”. The Downside Review 136/1,

3-28; Thomas, S. M. (2018). “A Trajectory Toward the Periphery: Francis of Assisi, Louis Massignon,

Pope Francis, and Muslim – Christian Relations”. The Review of Faith & International Affairs 16/1, 16-36;

Thomas, S. M. (2019). “The Encounter Between Francis of Assisi and al-Malik al-Kāmil and its Relevance

for Muslim-Christian Relations and Contemporary International Relations”. The Muslim World 109/1&2,

144-168.

TOWARDS A CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: ST. FRANCIS, POPE FRANCIS...

in Argentina where “the culture of encounter”, his signature concept as pope

was developed. Bergoglio was nested, embedded, in a set of intersecting so-

cial traditions – his Jesuit formation, European theology and philosophy, and

especially, and far less well known in the English-speaking world, the Rio de

la Plata school of Catholic, Latin American, theologians, philosophers, and

intellectuals who developed a specic “theology of the people” – and, its main

agents, actors were God’s holy faithful people in society, the state, and the

Church – and, now as Pope Francis he has brought this perspective to the

global Catholic Church – and, now the world, given his unprecedented popu-

larity, even outside the Church in Europe or the West. Through his concept of

the culture of encounter, he his intensied ecumenical dialogue (i.e. among

Christians) and interreligious dialogue (with non-Christian religions).

1. how do we see the world, esPeCiAlly the world oF internAtionAl

relAtions?

This section provides the necessary background for how to begin to inter-

pret Pope Francis’s concept of the culture of encounter from the perspective

of the theory of international relations because the culture of encounter deals

with a problem we are all faced with – how do we see the world? How do we

see, explain, interpret, and engage with what is going on in events, activities,

or social actions going on around us, which constitute the subject matter of

the study of international relations (or from the perspective of theology how

do we read the signs of the times)? Any answer to this question is inevitably

part of a set of more basic questions – what is theory, specically in the study

of international relations, what is it supposed to do (explain, understand, or

interpret what kinds of events, social actions, or activities taking place in the

world?), for whom is theory for (what actors, or agents – states, governments,

politicians, foreign policy-makers, scholars, and political commentators; or, is

theory far too important to be left to them, and is theory really for all of us – as

citizens, people of faith, people of good will, who seek to live faithfully and

responsibly in a rapidly globalizing world?

Moreover, for whom does theory matter – the rich, the poor, those who

are margins, the periphery of society, those who minister to the needs of others

(in secular and religious NGOs, in religious orders), or does theory matter for

those in (allegedly) peripheral countries (like Argentina, and many developing

SCOTT M. THOMAS

countries)? Who benets from different concepts of theory (the rich, the pow-

erful, or the poor, and those on the margins, the periphery)? What are the

consequences in the world of different concepts of theory, and consequences

for whom (the great powers, all states, the rich, the poor, or all of us)? Probing

questions like these help all of us to realise that theory matters, and it matters

– since seeing the world differently is a way of already beginning to change it.

The question about how we see the world is something that deeply con-

cerned Thomas Merton, one of the most well-known, and inuential Cister-

cian (Trappist) monks in the twentieth century. We know from Daniel Horan,

OFM, Merton had a Franciscan heart.

What is so important about Merton is

the way he struggled with how spirituality, spiritual insights, and the spiritual

life was inevitably and necessarily related to how we see the world, and desire

to live faithfully and responsibly in it. What is so striking is that this seemed

for him to require – and, this is another part of the argument of this chapter,

what can be called a radical “Franciscan” holistic and integrative understand-

ing of how theology, spirituality, and action are related to how we see the

world. Moreover, this holistic and integrative approach was evident in the life

story of St. Francis, and it is evident in Bergoglio’s, and now Pope Francis’s,

concept of the culture of encounter, with its implications for various global

issues and different regions of the world.

Merton, – perhaps, more intuitively, than analytically, already recognized

in the early days of the Cold War, what we call the events, activities, social

actions, which constitute international relations, were socially constructed,

and this means, – as he also recognized, all of us are socially, reexively,

and contingently a part of making the world the way it is, and why it is not in

some other way. Moreover, his early insights anticipated, and were reinforced

in the 1980s by the way critical theory (i.e. the Frankfurt School) and social

constructivism came into the theory of international relations.

Perhaps, a surprising place to begin is with Merton’s book, The Ascent

to Truth: the theology and spirituality of St. John of the Cross (1951). This

book does not seem to have stood the test of time, it has received a mixed

4. Thomas, S. M. (2005). The Global Resurgence of Religion and the transformation of International

Relations, Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. New York: Palgrave, 250.

5. Horan, D. H. (2014). The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton: A New Look at the Spiritual In-

spiration of His Life, Thought, and Writing. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.

TOWARDS A CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: ST. FRANCIS, POPE FRANCIS...

reception.

However, the Ascent to Truth was written at a time scholars now

call the early period of “rigid bipolarity” between the superpowers during the

Cold War. This rigidity was characterised by a zero-sum, a winner-loser, view

of the world, which contributed to signicant tensions in international rela-

tions (recall the Korean War had also recently started), when any event in the

world, or change in technology (recall with Sputnik, the Soviets were the rst

country to put a satellite in space in 1957), was perceived as something that

could upset the global balance of power between the U.S. and the Soviet Un-

ion, and increase the possibility of war between them. This is important to keep

in mind since any google search on the “new Cold War with Russia” brings

up enumerable entries going back a decade or more. What is so crucial about

this book – a book on spirituality, is the way Merton, right at the beginning,

sets out why he believed spirituality, or spiritual insights, were important for

understanding international relations, what was really going on in the world;

and, the study of international relations, or at least a good knowledge of inter-

national affairs, was important for spirituality, i.e. the desire to know God,

love God, serve God in the world, and live faithfully and responsibly in it.

In the beginning of The Ascent to Truth – a book on the theology and

spirituality of St. John of the Cross, Merton sets out the basic principles why

this is the case, using the great international events of his day – the rise of the

nuclear age or atomic age (i.e. the rivalry in nuclear weapons between the su-

perpowers), and the Cold War, the East-West rivalry (i.e. the political rivalry

between the superpowers in Europe and around the world).

We who live in what we ourselves have called the Atomic Age, have ac-

quired a peculiar facility for standing back and reecting on our own history

as if we were a phenomenon that took place ve thousand years ago. We like to

talk about our time as if we had no part in it. We view it as objectively as if it

existed outside ourselves, in a glass case [like in a museum]. If you are looking

for the Atomic Age, look inside yourself: because you are it. And so, alas, am I

(emphasis added).

Merton might have said in our time, “If you are looking for the war on

terror look inside yourself…,” “If you are looking for the Anthropocene Age

6. Mott, M. (1984). The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton. Boston: Houghton Mifin, Co., 237-

239, 265, 399.

7. Merton, T. (1951). The Ascent to Truth: the theology and spirituality of St. John of the Cross. Lon-

don: Burns & Oates, 5.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

or the climate emergency, look inside yourself,” “If you are looking for the

refugee crisis…,” or “If you are looking for the rise of populism and political

extremism…,” etc. (see section 3). Most of us would rather not look at the

world in this way – it links in very uncomfortable ways global politics and

daily living – the global politics of living locally, and the local politics of liv-

ing globally (this is why theory in international relations is for all of us, and is

far too important to be left to scholars, politicians, commentators, and foreign

policy makers). However, what is perhaps most distinctively “Franciscan” –

poverty and joy, the evocative title of an introductory study of Franciscan

spirituality by William J. Short, comes to mind, is to not look at the world in

fear (nuclear fear, population fear, and now, climate fear), and to be fearfully

motivated, but to look at the world, and be motivated for action – by faith,

hope, and love, the theological virtues (for God, for others, for all creatures,

and – we are now learning, for all of creation, since ultimately it is God’s

world, and we are meant to be good, faithful, and responsible stewards).

There are two basic ways all of us see foreign affairs or international

events, which provide the basic background to the study of international re-

lations. Firstly, do we have a social scientic view of the subject matter of

international relations – i.e. states, and non-state actors, and their relations

with each other, as being simply “out there” in the world, separate from our-

selves, our lives, and our lifestyles, to which we seek to nd objective, value-

free causes (efcient causation) – to wars, civil wars, refugees, migrants to

Europe, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of populism

and religious nationalism, youth protests across the globe, etc.) and, we then

add… our policy proposals, and… our ethics to the end of this overall analysis

(Catholic social teaching if you are a good Catholic, “Islamic ethics” if you

are a good Muslim, or Kantian ethics if you are a good liberal).

Secondly, or… do we think, and this was Merton’s spiritual intuition,

this is not really a very accurate description of how we see the world, nor

does it give an accurate explanation of what is taking place in the “events” in

the world that are the building blocks for the study of international relations.

The reason is that we live – and, this is the argument of social constructivists

in international relations, in a social world, and not only a natural world or a

material world – we live in a world of ideas, beliefs, values – and, yes, even

emotions, and not only a world of power, the national interest, and materi-

alism (the military and economic power of political realists, or the globali-

zation and economic interdependence of political liberals). Moreover, these

TOWARDS A CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: ST. FRANCIS, POPE FRANCIS...

international events are not something we observe, objectively, as happening

“outside ourselves”, i.e. “out there” in the world, – we are reexively a part

of these events, “we are part of it”, Merton says, we are part of what makes

the world the way it is; and, therefore, the kind of the theory we use to see the

world needs to reect this fundamental ontological reality of the social world

of international relations.

What does this mean for how we see the world – what we do, and do not

see? All kinds of things, all kinds of social activities happen in the world, but

not all of them are events. What are called “events”, are always socially, po-

litically, and religiously – or even, also economically, constructed (historically

these have often not been separate categories), and they are really narratively

constructed – by some actors, with some interest, and for some purpose to in-

dicate the event’s meaning and signicance for their time. This was true in the

past – regarding events in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, it is true of all

ages, and it is also true in the present age – regarding events in contemporary

international relations (i.e. there is a link to be made theoretically from of St.

Francis, St. Clare, and the early Franciscans, and how their world of politics

and international relations was socially constructed, and to ourselves and how

our world of politics and international relations is socially constructed).

Crucially, it is now possible to understand, what Merton was already criti-

cising intuitively, rather than formally in the early 1950s – the positivist (i.e.

allegedly objective, value-free), mainstream, social science perspective on

how to study international relations. This is why his analogy, “We view [the

world] as objectively as if it existed outside ourselves, in a glass case [like in

a museum]”, was so prescient regarding the fundamental problem of how we

see the world (especially, for scholars of international relations, but relevant

to all of us). He recognized we are all reexively a part of making the world

is the way it is (although most of us in the West, and those industrializing de-

veloping countries have more impact on the world than any peasant farmer in

the developing world).

This background on the social construction of reality makes it possible to

see some of the reasons Merton’s early analogy criticizing the conventional,

8. Onuf, N. (1989). World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Rela-

tions (reissued London: Routledge, 2012). University of South Carolina Press, 1989; Kratochwil, F. (2011).

The Puzzles of Politics: Inquiries into the genesis and transformation of international relations. London:

Routledge.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

social scientic way of looking at the world was so prescient regarding later

arguments by critical theorists, and social constructivist scholars in interna-

tional relations. Firstly, Merton realized that events in international relations

– including the big events of his time, the Cold War, and the Nuclear Age or

Atomic Age, were socially constructed by human beings – i.e. by all of us, and

he realised this in the dangerous, early years of rigid bipolarity of the Cold

War. He already realised this, in other words, at time when the temptation was

strongest, to see the world – not as one world, but (almost “naturally”) physi-

cally divided up (since 1946 with the “iron curtain” and growing East-West

axis of world division), and politically and ideologically divided into black-

white or evil-good categories. Moreover, the existing social scientic theory

and methods, developed during the heyday of quantitative methods with the

rise of computers, systems theory, etc., reinforced this dichotomy between

seeing the world in a divisive and divided way, i.e. as if the world was simply

“out there”, objectively separate from us, as if we had “no part in it” (Merton),

no part in making the world this way (iron curtain, the East-West axis, and the

nuclear age), and not contingently in some other way – through diplomacy,

dialogue, communication, peacemaking, and conict resolution.

Secondly, Merton’s analogy shows an early intuition of the “sociality” of

international relations (i.e. international relations for a type of what the early

English School calls “international society”, with ideas, rules, laws, norms to

promote international order, rather than a type of mechanistic “international

system” and its concern for “international stability”), and its “reexivity”, in

the sense that all of us are part of making international relations the way they

are.

In other words, there is no (one) “reality” of international relations “out

there” in the world waiting to be observed and discovered separate from our

encounter, engagement, and participation in the world of international rela-

tions. Different contexts, argue social constructivists, can produce different re-

sults or outcomes. This social constructivist argument is explicitly in contrast

to the positivist, mainstream, study of international relations, which assumed

states are the same across time, space, and contexts – since they face the same

9. The argument here alludes to the possible usefulness of Duns Scotus on agency, choice, and con-

tingency, and its relationship to peacemaking, conict resolution, and the theory of international relations.

Jean-Nicolas Bitter, Senior Advisor on Religion, Politics, and Conict in the Swiss Federal Department of

Foreign Affairs used Scotus for his PhD dissertation at the University of Lausanne (2003). Les Dieux Em-

busqués: Une approche pragmatique de la dimension religieuse des conits. Genève-Paris: Librairie.

10. Mayall, J. (ed.) (1982). The Community of States. London: Allen & Unwin.

TOWARDS A CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: ST. FRANCIS, POPE FRANCIS...

type of “security dilemma in the past”,

and in the present, in contemporary

international relations. This is how the early theory and methods helped to

reinforce the East-West axis of division in international relations. For political

realists this is simply the “tragedy of great power politics”, it is the timeless,

and universal truths of political realism in international relations.

However, social constructivist medieval historians, and social construc-

tivist scholars of international relations have emphasized not the similarity of

states or types of political communities (the timeless and perennial truths of

political realism), but that social life, and the “sociality” of different types of

political communities (states, city-states, kingdoms, etc.) – have always been

socially constructed (positivism in history is not any better than positivism in

contemporary international relations). Human beings have always lived in a

world that is socially, politically, culturally – and, economically constructed.

The medieval world was a socially constructed world – the world of St. Fran-

cis, and Sultan al-Kamil, the world is a social world in our age, and in any age

– in the past, and in the present age.

Thirdly, Merton’s analogy – and, indeed, many of his writings relevant

to international affairs, can be read as an intuitive recognition of the human

social, spiritual, and political consequences – again, very early in the Cold

War, for what emerged as the “agency-structure problem” in international

relations, which especially gained relevance in relation to the cruise missile

crisis in Europe, and the rise of social movement activism in the 1980s. This

is the debate, rstly, on the “agency” of human beings and their organizations

11. The problem of “international anarchy” is meant to be a descriptive condition in positivist inter-

national relations theory – what the world “out there” is like (Merton), and is dened as the problem of cre-

ating or constructing “international order” in the absence of an overarching government (unlike in domestic

politics). The “security dilemma” is (allegedly) the inevitable empirical, observable result of each state’s

efforts to enhance their military capabilities, inadvertently makes all other states insecure in international

relations. One aspect of the constructivist challenge is that “anarchy is what states make of it” (Alexander

Wendt), i.e. state actions (and reactions) depends on their identities, and social interactions, and not only

the absence of an overarching government, and this is why the world is a “world of our making” (Onuf).

Onuf, N. (1989). World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations. Co-

lumbia: University of South Carolina Press (reissued London: Routledge, 2012); Kratochwil, F. (2011). The

Puzzles of Politics: Inquiries into the genesis and transformation of international relations. London: Rout-

ledge. Therefore, this points to the possible usefulness of Scotus on the role of agency, choice, and contin-

gency in theories of identity and social interaction in international relations. Realist/neorealist scholars who

read an inevitable, negative, and conictual view of the security dilemma back into the Middle Ages have

been strongly criticized by constructivist scholars. Hall, R. B. – Kratochwil, F. V. (1993). “Medieval tales:

neorealist ‘science’ and the abuse of history”. International Organization 47/3, 479-491.

12. Mearsheimer, J. (2001). The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

and social movements, i.e. states and a variety of non-state actors and so-

cial movements,

as purposive actors, agents who have capacity, or capabil-

ity through social interaction to produce social change, and transform their

states, societies, and the relations between them in the international system;

and, secondly, the debate on “structure”, i.e. the fact that it is the dominant

actors, agents, and their ideas, doctrines, and discourses, which determine the

overall power structure that conditions, determines the way social interactions

take place between states in the international system, and this can limit or

constrain the ability of actors, agents to work for social and political change

or transform anything – states, societies, or even the general conditions of

international relations.

Social constructivism is not rooted in ethics, idealism, or utopianism, but

the actual analysis of events, activities, and social actions in international rela-

tions, and what makes the international order one way, and not another way, is

the result of the processes of social interaction. This means states themselves

should be seen, interpreted, or understood as part of a social process (social

ontology rather than individualist ontology), even if states are not totally free

to choose their policies and circumstances.

It is through their interaction with

other states that new options, possibilities, and new choices are possible in the

international system, and this can lead to new historically, culturally, and po-

litically ‘realities’ in international relations (e.g. changing values, norms, and

ethics leading to the abolition of slavery, women’s right to vote, the abolition

of colonialism and imperialism, etc.).

13. E.g. development NGOs, advocacy NGOs (anti-slavery, decolonization and independence/na-

tional liberation, human rights, women’s rights/gender equality, environment, anti-racism, anti-apartheid,

the US Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, European Nuclear Disarmament, etc. The “religious turn” in

the study of international relations has pointed to the often key role of religious actors in each of these areas

of social action.

14. The idea of social ontology, rather than an individualist ontology – concepts in (Western or Eu-

ropean) social theory, is easily explained by indigenous knowledge – the Xhosa proverb Desmond Tutu

often quotes, “people become people through other people”, and so in international relations, states be-

come the kind of states they are (identity) through social interaction (social ontology) with other states

(positively or negatively). However, states learn what to desire, and how to act through the desires and ac-

tions of other states (what René Girard calls positive or negative mimesis). Ngomane, N. M. (2019). Every-

day Umbuntu: Living better together, the African way, Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. New York:

Bantam Press; Scott, M. T. (2014). “Culture, Religion, and Violence: René Girard’s Mimetic Theory”, Mil-

lennium 43/1, 308-327.

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2. whAt is theory And why it mAtters. CritiCAl theory, soCiAl

ConstruCtivism And PoPe FrAnCis’s Culture oF enCounter

In order to see why critical theory and social constructivism are relevant

to contemporary international relations it is necessary to see why they began

to develop – on the margins of the discipline of international relations in the

1980s, and more fully after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s. Moreover,

the reasons for this have a surprising relevance for how to interpret, or under-

stand the concept of the “culture of encounter” articulated by Pope Francis,

since Jorge Mario Bergoglio developed these ideas at the same time, and for

many similar reasons – a pope from the “ends of the earth”,

who could see,

feel, and even smell the consequences of being on the periphery of interna-

tional relations and international political economy.

Critical theory scholars in the study of international relations ask a set of

inter-related questions about how we see the world of international relations,

and seek to explain, understand, or interpret what is going on in it. These ques-

tions began to be framed in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the aftermath of

the Cold War.

The real world begins here… What we think about these events and pos-

sibilities, and what we think we can do about them, depends in a fundamen-

tal sense on how we think about them [e.g. the war in Bosnia and genocide in

Rwanda, and other international events]. In short, our thinking about the ‘real’

world, and hence our practices, is directly related to our theories, so as people

interested in and concerned about the real world, we must be interested in and

concerned about theory: What are the legacies of past theories? Whose facts have

been most important in shaping our ideas? Whose voices are overlooked [i.e. the

concept of ontology, actors, agents, which constitute the nature of international

relations]? Can we know and how can we know it [i.e. the concept of epistemol-

ogy]? Where is theory going? Who are we [i.e. the concept of identity]? The

15. It is worth remembering what Pope Francis said from the balcony of St. Peter’s basilica was – no

doubt quite consciously, similar to what Karol Wojtyla said when he became Pope John Paul II, and said he

became pope “from a far country” (i.e. from Poland in the heart of the Soviet empire).

16. This alludes to Pope Francis’s memorable metaphor, a good pastor, like a good shepherd, knows

the smell of his sheep. It is clear this is the way Bergoglio “performed the gospel life” during his time in

Argentina. Ivereigh, A. (2015). The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope. London:

Allen & Unwin, 210-252; Cunningham, Lawrence, S. (2004). Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel

Life. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

real world is constituted by the dominant answers to these and other theoretical

questions (emphasis added).

Critical theorists ask what dominant ideas, discourses, and social prac-

tices have dominated international relations – in the present, during the Cold

War, and in the post-Cold War world, but as this section indicates, it also asks

these questions historically – regarding the past (the ancient Near East, i.e.

biblical times, and the Middle Ages – what have been the dominant discourses

in these times?).

Why did critical theory and social constructivism emerge

in the theory of international relations in the 1980s? The reason is that Cold

War, the Vietnam War, the fear of nuclear war, and the cruise missile crisis in

Europe led to a growing recognition of the limits to the idea of an objective

or positivist social scientic understanding of international relations (going

back to Merton’s analogy and section 1). It was argued there was something

profoundly wrong – morally, and analytically, with the way these theories,

paradigms, perspectives – the dominant narratives of the superpowers, were

implicated themselves in the production of the existing structures of interna-

tional power in the international system, i.e. the creation of the existing rivalry

between the superpowers now threatening the world. These ideas – critical

theory, and social constructivism, contributed to a way of engaging, resolv-

ing, the “agency-structure problem” by analysing international relations in

new ways – a way of restoring agency, and a more accurate reection of what

was taking place in the world, and what as agents, actors, individuals, and hu-

man beings they could do about it. This was reected in the activism of civil

society groups and new social movements – rst in opposing cruise missiles

in Europe in the 1980s, and then in overcoming communism in the 1990s (sec-

tion 3 argues this was also what the Rio de la Plata school of theology to which

Bergoglio engaged with before he became pope was trying to do with its the-

ology of the people, and non-Marxist liberation theology, which inuenced

17. Smith, S., & Booth, K., & Zalewski, M. (eds.). (1996). International theory: positivism & be-

yond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-10.

18. Brueggemann, W. (1997). Old Testament Theology: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapo-

lis, MN: Augsburg/Fortress. He criticises the positivism of earlier generations Old Testament scholars. This

book is publicised as ‘the rst postmodern’ Old Testament theology, and Brueggemann even uses this term,

but from an international relations theory perspective, it is closer to critical theory and social constructiv-

ism than postmodernism (see footnote 19). He also cites a variety of American scholars of international

relations – Fukuyama, Paul M. Kennedy (who is actually British), Henry Kissinger, McGeorge Bundy, and

Robert S. McNamara.

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the episcopal conferences of Latin America (CELAM). This is why theory

matters – for interpreting international relations in the past – and, interpreting

contemporary international relations.

Critical theorists develop the following critique of mainstream, positivist,

social scientic theory in the study of international relations as they articulate

an alternative approach to theory. Firstly, they refer to social scientic theory

as “problem-solving theory” – sees the world, international events, (allegedly)

objectively, existing outside ourselves, which is also why Merton’s analogy is

so powerful, looking at the world if we were looking at an object objectively

through a glass case in a museum. Merton is already intuitively criticising –

what later critical theorists call “problem-solving theory”. Theory in interna-

tional relations – as problem-solving theory seeks to explain (alleg edly objec-

tively, in a value-free way), the workings of the existing international system.

It uses the existing frameworks of diplomatic or political institutions to solve,

or at least manage more effectively, foreign policy problems in the interests of

the great powers (the USA and Russia), or emerging great powers in the ex-

isting international order (e.g. China, India). The problem is that mainstream

theorists of international relations – those who are realists/neo-realists (who

emphasize power politics), or liberals/neo-liberals (who emphasize interna-

tional law, international organisations, and international economics), are both

committed to the positivist, social scientic method (at least as the approach

which dominates, or has dominated the mainstream study of international re-

lations in the United States). Scholars calls this the “neo-neo synthesis” since

both types of theory (neorealism and neoliberalism), regardless of their ana-

lytical and political differences are embedded with similar set of assumptions

regarding what is theory, and what is science, and what states are like – so,

both the dominant theories, paradigms, or perspectives of relations see the

world, as if it is “out there” (i.e. empirical observation), exactly as Merton

powerful analogy described it – we have produced the world we are all look-

ing at, as if we are unrelated to what we are seeing, as if we are looking at the

world through the glass case in the museum. This is why the chapter began by

asking how do we see the world, and it is now clear the two basic options are

rooted problematically in the neo-neo synthesis between realism and liberal-

ism (section 1).

Secondly, critical theorists see theory in international relations – as also

“theory as negative critique”, or what can be argued, theory as prophetic cri-

tique in international relations. Section 3 shows why this may be a crucial way

SCOTT M. THOMAS

of interpreting Pope Francis’s culture of encounter. For critical theorists this

view of theory probes why and how the world came to be as it is – a world

divided into national states, how did the state come to monopolize our vision

of loyalty, identity, and meaning – or in our time, how did this change, and

people have adopted – ethnicity, the nation, or religion, i.e. religious national-

ism as religious identication with the nation or the state as a (narrower) sense

of loyalty, identity, and meaning? Critical theorists ask questions about what

is theory, but they can also ask concrete questions – how did the international

system, as a system of states, or a type of international society come into ex-

istence, spread around the world, as an accumulation of social and diplomatic

practices, and should it remain this way, or are there other ways of organising

the relations between states and political communities?

However, theory as negative critique might also be called prophetic cri-

tique, the perspective of the biblical prophets, what Walter Brueggemann has

called “the prophetic imagination”. The prophetic imagination – wrestles with

the agency-structure problem, to see the world in new ways, not with idealism

or romanticism, but how it “really” operates as a social world that includes

all of us (beyond positivist social theory). It seeks to evoke and nurture a

greater awareness of the way the dominant culture constructs the social world,

its power relations, and its dominant, authoritative conception of reality, and

knowledge of what is going on in the world (so theory as negative critique, or

as the prophetic imagination goes back to section 1). It asks the basic ques-

tion of epistemology – what is knowledge, how do we know, what we know,

and when do we know, when we know it? In other words, this same question

Merton grappled with is the one critical and social constructivist scholars of

international relations grapple with.

Brueggemann sets out a distinctive critical and social constructivist inter-

pretation of the biblical prophets as a more radical way of seeing, interpreting,

and understanding what is going on in the world than (i) prophesy as pre-

dicting the future (evangelical conservatives), or (ii) prophecy as proclaiming

social justice (secular or religious liberals). The prophetic imagination is a

more radical way of seeing the world than is offered by either of these two

19. Brueggemann acknowledges his understanding of the prophetic imagination is informed by

Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise on the Sociology of

Knowledge. New York: Doubleday. Brueggemann, W. (

2001). The Prophetic Imagination. Minneapolis,

MN: Fortress Press, 1-19, 130.

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views of biblical prophecy. Perhaps, many critical theorists and social con-

structivists can agree with it, at least up to a point. The prophetic imagination

criticises the way theory – as problem-solving theory, is used by great powers,

political leaders, political elites, and foreign policy makers to shape society’s

dominant discourse on politics and international relations (disseminated fur-

ther by scholars, journalists, and political commentators in the news media

and in popular culture). Brueggemann wonderfully calls this the “language of

managed reality”, to express how the dominant culture, and dominant great

powers support the existing domestic and international order, and its existing

narratives, interpretations, and legitimations.

However, Robert Cox, a leading critical theorist in international relations,

argues the purpose of theory is “not just to explain the world [i.e. problem-

solving theory, with its social scientic approach to theory] but to change it”.

Brueggemann argues, being prophetic – in the past, in the socially constructed

world of the ancient Near East, and in the present, in our socially constructed

world of international relations, is to recognize “the interplay of social forces

that are in conict over the correct characterization of social reality”, and he

powerfully points to the way such a dominant culture constructs a “narcoti-

cized insensibility to human reality”.

This is why section 1 began by asking

how do we see the world, and it is why Pope Francis’s culture of encounter ts

with the concept of theory as prophetic critique – as he began his ponticate

his rst journey outside Rome – i.e. the Franciscan way “he performed the

gospel life”,

was to go the Italian island of Lampedusa to call the world’s

attention to the plight of migrants and refugees, and denounce globalized in-

difference (section 3).

The prophets, Brueggemann argues, offer the rhetoric, which helps to so-

cially construct, to socially constitute, a counter-narrative, an alternative inter-

pretation of reality, contrary to the way the dominant culture interprets reality

20. Cox, R.W. (2007). “The Point is Not Just to Explain the World but to Change It.” In Reus-Smit

C. & Snidal, D. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

84-93.

21. Brueggemann, W. (

2001). The Prophetic Imagination. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, xx.

22. Cunningham, L.S. (2004). Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Ee-

rdmans.

23. Brueggemann, W. (

2001). The Prophetic Imagination. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, x;

Cox, R. W. (1981). “Social forces, States, and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory”. Mil-

lennium 10/2, 126-155; Ivereigh, A. (2015). The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical

Pope. London: Allen & Unwin, 1-3, 378.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

– “the hegemonic power of royal consciousness”, in the ancient Near East (i.e.

the events portrayed in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament); and, more recently,

during the Cold War, the rival dominant discourses and hegemonic conscious-

ness of the superpowers – which contributed to the rise of critical theory in the

heady, optimistic, early post-Cold War period of “American unipolarity”, with

the U.S. export of its dominant discourse, the one-model-ts-all conception of

liberal democracy, capitalism, and globalization (called the “Washington Con-

sensus”). The results of this model on the poor, the marginalized, and those on

the periphery contributed to Jorge Bergoglio, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires,

to begin to develop the concept of “the culture of encounter” over the next

few years as an alternative discourse, an alternative narrative, an alternative

account of reality to the U.S.’s dominant discourse of the end of history, and

the triumph of liberal democracy, capitalism, and globalization (section 3).

Critical theorists also consider theory in international relations – as “the-

ory as everyday social practice” in international relations. For critical theorists

the concept of theory as every-day social practice bringing together ethically

and analytically the “everyday politics of global living”. One of the central

tasks of critical theory is to be reective about our everyday social practices

– all of us live out a theory of international relations everyday by the way we

live our lives, in the way we “act”, the choices we make, what we buy, what

we consume, what we eat, how we travel, i.e. every day we all live out “the

local politics of world politics”. Francis of Assisi, of course, acted more intui-

tively, he was not a theorist, nor a strategist (like St. Ignatius of Loyola), but

as the son of a great merchant in Assisi, he accompanied his father on trade

fairs to France, and in the surrounding communes. What characterized these

medieval times was not globalization, but it was the rise of cities, urbaniza-

tion, an increasingly integrated medieval market economy and prot economy

in Europe (with the rise of money, something hated by St. Francis). This was

the early rise of capitalism, as something more than a new type of economic

system of organisation, but also the early rise of the culture of capitalism

(i.e. critical theory’s critique of capitalism), with its accompanying poverty

and inequality –and, as a response, the rise of voluntary poverty as a type of

religious ideal contrary to the new values and culture of prot and commerce,

often by rejecting society altogether (in which Francis of Assisi was only the

best known and inuential example).

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3. towArds the “Culture oF enCounter”

The culture of encounter emerged in relation to the problem this chapter

started with – how do we see the world, and interpret what is going on in it,

especially the world of international relations? How can we do this, in a holis-

tic and integrative way (theology, spirituality, and social action), which leads

to a deeper understanding of what it means to live faithfully and responsibly

in the world? This section argues the culture of encounter was deeply rooted

in the theology, spirituality, and pastoral practice of Bergoglio, and the circle

of Catholic priests, theologians, and philosophers he was associated with, as

a distinctively Catholic alternative, counter-cultural, discourse in Argentina

and Latin America. It can be identied as a type of negative, even prophetic,

critique of (certain types) of capitalism and globalization, the culture of capi-

talism, and the way they were implemented in international relations since the

end of the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union (this is arguably one

of the reasons the Church, and Pope Francis have emphasized the evangeliza-

tion of culture).

The end of the Cold War signalled – or, seemed to signal at

the time (the immediate post-1989 period), not only the end of communism,

but also the end of socialism as a possible way of organising the economy.

However, given the grand failure of the communist project by the 1980s,

and the grand failure of the liberal project since the 1990s – not only the fail-

ure of the spread of democracy (especially in the Middle East), and its con-

solidation (in central Europe, formerly Eastern Europe), but also the failure

of liberal protection wars or wars of humanitarian intervention, which end up

killing more people than they are supposed to protect,

the nancial crisis

of 2008, and in the West – and, everywhere, for ordinary people, especially

young people (a special concern of Pope Francis). The impact of these events

can be seen on their lives and livelihoods with a rise of poverty, inequality, and

unemployment, a key characteristic of many young people around the world.

How did Jorge Mario Bergoglio see the world before he became pope,

and how was he trained in those virtues, practices, and spiritual, intellectual,

and practical formation, which enabled him to see the world in a specic way?

24. Ivereigh, A. (2015). The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope. London:

Allen & Unwin, 184-186.

25. Kivimäki, T. (2019). The Failure to Protect: The Path to and Consequences of Humanitarian In-

tervention. London: Edward Elgar.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

This section briey provides a new kind of optic, or orientation to these ques-

tions, rather than any overall answer to them, using “the level of analysis”, one

of the most widely used frameworks in the theory of international relations.

3.1. Level of Analysis of the International System

The level of analysis of the international system sets out the main charac-

teristics of any type of international system in the past, including the Middle

Ages as a “mixed actor” type of international system, and the characteristics

of the present international system.

The most important thing to say – going back to Thomas Merton, is that

the concept of the culture of encounter, in the rst instance, emerged dur-

ing the Cold War, the nuclear age, the East-West axis of world division, as

the main characteristics of the international system. All the countries in Latin

America, including Argentina, faced special problems given their close prox-

imity to the United States, and its “hegemonic presumption” in the region (“so

far from God, but so close to the United States”), and its close proximity to

Cuba (a “state of socialist orientation” in America’s backyard, according to of-

cial Soviet foreign policy discourse). The political, military, and ideological

rivalry between the superpowers intersected with the problems within states

in the region, and between them – wars, civil wars, guerrilla insurgencies,

populism, liberalism, nationalism, democracy, dictatorships, and poverty, in-

equality, and development.

The overall problem for developing countries during the Cold War was

the failure since the 1960s of the theory of modernization, and its implicit

spreading of the consumer society, i.e. the culture of capitalism, as the frame-

work of U.S. foreign policy to promote a specic meaning of democracy and

26. David Singer, J. (1961). “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations”. World Pol-

itics 14/1, 77-92.

27. The concept of a medieval “mixed actor” type of international system means an international

system consisting of states (i.e. empires, kingdoms, national states, etc.) and a variety of non-state actors in

historic state-systems (e.g. duchies, principalities, free cities, and prince-bishops). There is a debate since

the 1970s in the English School of international relations over a “new medievalism”, i.e. if the international

system is moving back to the future – towards a neo-medieval, mixed actor, type of contemporary interna-

tional system. Bull, H. (1977). The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. London: Mac-

millan, 254-255, 264-276, 291-294; Friedrichs, J. (2001). “The Meaning of New Medievalism”. European

Journal of International Relations 7/4, 475-502; Rapley, J. (2006). “The New Middle Ages”. Foreign Af-

fairs. New York, Council on Foreign Relations 85/3, 95-103.

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development. The U.S. moved away from its “democratic ideal”, and came

to embrace “bureaucratic-authoritarian” regimes in Latin America (and else-

where) because of the fear of the attractiveness of communism. This contrib-

uted to the emergence on the continent of dependency theory, liberation theol-

ogy, and guerrilla insurgencies (often supported by Cuba and Soviet Union).

The concept of the culture of encounter, in the second instance, devel-

oped further in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, and Latin America in response

to the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, and the epochal changes at that time

in international relations. The heady, optimistic, early post-Cold War era was

called by its most triumphalist supporters the U.S.’s “unipolar moment” to

remake the world (post-1989).

This was characterized by a dominant dis-

course shared by the U.S. – and, to some extent, its European or Western allies

(capitalism, liberal democracy, and globalization).

In a post-September 11 world, the same thing seems to have happened all

over again. This time in the Middle East, with the erosion of the democratic

deal, as local kings and princes use the U.S. attractiveness of Islamism (for

others), and its fear of Islamism and terrorism, to crush political dissent, oppo-

sition, and prevent civil society and democracy. However, Pope Francis, with

the background of Argentina, and Latin America, where the culture of encoun-

ter was forged on the anvil of this region’s problems, has pushed back against

this narrative, following the footsteps of St. Francis (his counter-cultural cri-

tique of Christendom, in the way he performed the gospel life, and encounter

with the Sultan of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade), and he is now extending

the culture of encounter to the Middle East, with the Document on Human

Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together (signed in Abu Dhabi, United

Arab Emirates, with Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Egypt,

February 2019). Moreover, in ways to promote the concept and its objectives

(values, norms) of human fraternity, and their institutionalization in interna-

tional society, a committee was set-up in August 2019 to help achieve them,

with members from all the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and

Islam), and is chaired by the Pontical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

In December 2019, through the committee, Pope Francis and Grand Imam

28. Krauthammer, C. (1990-1991). “The Unipolar Moment”. Foreign Affairs 70/1, 23-33: https://

www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1991-02-01/unipolar-moment (accessed: 2019/11/29); Krauthammer, C.

(2002). “Unipolar Moment Revisited”. The National Interest 1, 2002: https://nationalinterest.org/article/

the-unipolar-moment-revisited-391 (accessed: 2019/11/29).

SCOTT M. THOMAS

Sheikh Ahmed have proposed February 4 be declared a UN World Day of Fra-

ternity (the anniversary of the signing of the document), and they have asked

the UN to join them in organizing a World Summit on Human Fraternity in

the new year.

3.2. State and Society Level of Analysis

The concept of the culture of encounter in the rst instance developed

at the state and society levels of analysis, and reected specic Argentine is-

sues – historically, most importantly, is the relation to the state – “Peronism”,

as a type of Argentine populism, and it’s often (troubled) relationship to a

specic, Argentine, type of religious nationalism, which was also a specif-

ic type of Catholic nationalism. These ideas, or really vision of the Church,

Latin America, and the world, were articulated by a group of Catholic Latin

American theologians, philosophers, and intellectuals – the Rio de la Plata

school – engaging a specic understanding of theology, spirituality, and pasto-

ral practice, as part of a specic understanding of the Church, Latin America,

and the world (and institutionalized in the documents of the various CELAM

conferences). Bergoglio was closely associated with these ideas, and members

of this school. This Catholic version of religious nationalism, was – and con-

tinues to be, inclusive since it looked to the people,

rather than to the state, or

to a specic social class, and is regional (or even transnational) since it looks

beyond Argentina to Latin America (and so it forms what might be called a

type of political theology of Latin American regional integration). This is quite

different from the recent rise of exclusive forms of religious nationalism (e.g.

in India Modi and the Hindu nationalists, in Turkey Erdoğan, and the AKP, in

Israel Netanyahu, and Likud Party, and in the U.S. Trump and conservative

evangelicals (there are other type of American evangelicals). Therefore, the

origins of the culture of encounter are situated in the problems in Argentina,

and Latin America at the state and society level of analysis, going back to the

1960s, and beyond, especially to Argentina’s political and economic crises in

the 1970s,1980s, and 1990s, i.e. the period of Bergoglio’s spiritual, intellec-

tual, and pastoral formation, grappling with specic problems in Argentina,

29. Pueblo in Spanish convey something more than “people” in English, and in the context of this

chapter refers to Bergoglio’s concept of santo pueblo el de Dios, God’s holy faithful people.

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and Latin America (keeping in mind the wider structural dimensions of the

level of analysis of the international system).

The culture of encounter, in the second instance, now emerged even pow-

erfully in the post-Cold War period, rooted in the ideas of the Rio de la Plata

school, institutionalized in the documents of the CELAM conferences, and

the history of Argentina, and Latin America, as a holistic, integrative, and

now prophetic response to this new situation with the end of the Cold War,

the nuclear rivalry, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union – also, seem-

ingly, the end of socialism or communism as a viable economic model. This

was why it was called “the unipolar moment” by many U.S. scholars and

commentators with a triumphalist disposition. Moreover, from the perspec-

tive of international relations, the culture of encounter developed after what

the Rio de la Plata school considered to be both ‘the failures of both the North

American model of economic growth and Cuban-style socialism’ (post-1989,

but already evident before this time), and “they were convinced that the stage

now belonged to the People of God”,

“God’s holy and faithful people,” a

key concept of the “theology of the people” in the Rio de la Plata school. All

these matters need to be properly understood or else Pope Francis’s ideas on

capitalism, Marxism, liberalism, Cuba, and the United States are distorted and

misunderstood – which is what has happened in the battles of the “culture-

wars” between (mainly North American, English-speaking, Catholic liberals

and conservatives.

In other words, signicantly, the culture of encounter articulated, devel-

oped, a specic type of a regional response (i.e. a Latin American response)

to the “agency – vs. – structure problem” facing Latin America’s role in the

international system. It was specic Catholic, nationalist, regional, and trans-

national, but also a response of the Catholic Church in Latin America (insti-

tutionally represented by CELAM). However, as Bergoglio, as Pope Francis,

has been applying these ideas to confront with the problems in the rest of the

world since the beginning of his ponticate.

30. Ivereigh, 234.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

3.3. Individual Level of Analysis

The culture of encounter, from the perspective of the individual level of

analysis, indicates how Bergoglio developed a holistic and integrative vision

of the way “pastoral, mystical, and intellectual experiences come together” in

the way he came to see the world (Merton). There were, of course, a number

of key inuences on Bergoglio’s theology, spirituality, and pastoral practice.

The key Catholic philosophers who helped shape Bergoglio’s spiritual and

intellectual formation, and especially in relation to the culture of encounter,

and international relations, i.e. the ideas of the Rio de la Plata school, were

the Uruguayan philosopher Alberto Methol Ferré (1929-2009), who through

his widely read articles, books, and the journals he edited – which were also

widely read by Bergoglio, was “arguably one of the most signicant and origi-

nal Latin American Catholic intellectuals of the late twentieth century”.

had a signicant impact on the documents of various CELAM conferences

(so there is a direct link between the ideas of the Second Vatican Council, the

Rio de la Plata school, and their institutionalization in the documents of the

CELAM conferences, which formed their Catholic vision for Argentina, Latin

America, the world, and the future of the Catholic Church in the world.

Methol articulated a vision of an “ecclesial geopolitics” (his word) domi-

nated by the Church and Latin America, two poles, united, and distinct at the

same time, and argued Latin Americans “cannot be engaged in one without

also being engaged in other” – why, because “the people” is the starting point

for both of them.

It is the concept of “the people”, as “God’s holy faithful

people”, which is part of the “theology of the people” in the Rio de la Plata

school, which makes these ideas so signicant for the culture of encounter –

rst articulated for Argentina and Latin America, and now with Pope Francis,

for the world. The concept of “God’s holy faithful people”, from the perspec-

tive of the agency-structure debate in international relations theory, and the

international relations of Latin America, indicate the way the Rio de la Plata

school’s concept of ecclesial geopolitics articulated an alternative narrative,

an alternative way of interpreting events in Latin America, the Church, regard-

ing socialism, communism, capitalism, and globalization – i.e. the theology of

the people provided a way to “out-narrate” the dominant U.S. narrative (the

31. Ivereigh, 234; Borghesi, 143.

32. Borghesi, 143-144.

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“Washington consensus”), and its’ way of interpreting international relations

and international political economy. Moreover, what is also signicant, from

the perspective of “multiple modernities”, a postmodern, and post-secular

sensitivities, is how these ideas also relate to more deeply engaged, religious,

or faith-based understanding of civil society and democracy (in an age of

spreading populism and nationalism in the West and to the rest of the world).

What were the key ideas of the Rio de la Plata school in relation to the

development of the culture of encounter? What is emphasized here is that

what was being articulated was a specic type of “Catholic praxis”, a Catholic

vision of global politics and economics – not separate from, but as an integra-

tive part of a holistic, and integrative approach to theology, spirituality, and

pastoral practice for what it means to live faithfully and responsibility in the

world. Therefore, this is the connection between the ideas surrounding the cul-

ture of encounter to ecumenical dialogue (among Christians), inter-religious

dialogue (Jews and Muslims), and to the desires, fears, and aspirations of all

people of good will. This is why Methol pointed to St. Francis, and Borghesi

to Pope Francis, for what needs to be demonstrated now is the “attractiveness”

of Christianity for the twenty-rst century.

Firstly, they considered the Latin American Church as key to la patria

grande, i.e. the Church as a catalyst for a common Latin American destiny, a

new continental consciousness, and envisioned it would take its place in the

modern world, and become an important inuence on it (which is what is hap-

pening, and Pope Benedict XVI, in contrast to Ratzinger in the 1980s, now is

in agreement with this inuence of the Latin American Church on the future

of the global Catholic Church). Moreover, this vision, a Catholic nationalist

vision, inspired by the Church in Latin America (CELAM being its regional

institutional expression), had a specic vision of regional integration and in-

ternational relations (what might be called a political theology of regional

integration), and this vision was part of larger vision – an alternative way of

interpreting the overall future of global politics and global economics. In other

words, this group of Catholic, Latin American, theologians and philosophers

had their own vision and interpretation of what would be the future key con-

tours of the twenty-rst century at the level of analysis of the international

system.

Secondly, one of their key characteristics at the level of analysis of the

international system would be a global future marked by continental states.

In other words, this political theology of regional integration intersected with

SCOTT M. THOMAS

its vision of CELAM, and the increasing importance of the Church in Latin

American to the future of the global Catholic Church. However, how EU-Lat-

in America relations, and regional organizations of North, Central, and South

America t, or might t, into this Catholic nationalist vision, or political theol-

ogy of regional integration is beyond the scope of this paper.

Thirdly, a core part of this vision by the Rio de la Plata school – and,

with its emphasis on a specic understanding of “the people” (in contrast

to liberalism),

is about restoring “agency” to the poor, santo pueblo el de

Dios, “God’s holy faithful people”,

articulated in the teología del pueblo,

the theology of the people,

constructed as a non-Marxist interpretation of

liberation theology. Liberation theology emerged in at least two different ver-

sions after the second Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) in

Medellín, Columbia (1968). Both were committed to liberation theology, and

the option for the poor, but they had different roots. Pope Francis’s culture

of encounter is distorted, and misunderstood without recognizing these dif-

ferences. The rst version, which is what comes to most people’s minds,

mainly associated with Marxism, and was prevalent in Central America and

the Andean countries. It is based on the notion of a “people’s church” made up

of Christian base communities (CBCs), at odds – or, often at odds (so it would

seem), with the “institutional” Catholic Church, and was “nourished by post-

Enlightenment liberalism and Marxism” (which Latin American theologians

brought back from their studies in Europe).

The second version, less well unknown, at least outside Latin America,

and in the English-speaking world, is represented by the Rio de la Plata school,

had “a more intense critique of the identication of Enlightenment and mo-

dernity” than did Marxist-oriented versions of liberation theology – which cri-

tiqued the Church, but did not offer a critique of modernity, or what Alasdair

MacIntyre has called “the Enlightenment Project”.

These theologians also

offered a critique of modernity and the Enlightenment Project, one which also

included a critique of both Marxism and capitalism.

However, this second

33. Schama.

34. Ivereigh, 62-63.

35. Ivereigh, 185-186.

36. Borghesi, 162.

37. Ivereigh, 184-185.

38. Thomas.

39. What is often ignored, and is also not part of debates over the Church and liberation theology

is the way Ratzinger/Benedict accepts Adorno and Horkheimer (1944). Dialectic of Enlightenment, i.e.

TOWARDS A CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: ST. FRANCIS, POPE FRANCIS...

version was as interested in culture as it was economics, and “took up the

question of Latin American culture and rediscovered the roots of popular re-

ligiosity”, and was nourished “by national, popular, and Catholic traditions”.

It represented, as at the Pueblo CELAM conference (1979), “the encounter

of popular religion and the modern world that is so crucial for the Church

in Latin America”.

This was the version that inuenced Bergoglio and his

circle of associates. It called for “justice, deplored oppression and exploita-

tion, and stood up for the rights of workers”, but rejected Marxism as “alien

not only to Christianity but also to the spirit of our people”.

This means it

did not “frame el pueblo”, the people, in sociological or Marxist categories, as

the version of liberation theology inuenced by Marxist ideas (and, although

Ivereigh does not say this, in terms of the individual as the unit of analysis,

and the rationality and autonomy of the individual). Rather it “saw the people

as active agents of their own history”, and startlingly asserted, “the activity of

the Church should not only be oriented towards the people but also primarily

derive from the people”.

In other words, this second version of liberation theology was for a Church

“with a clear option for the poor”, but understood as a radical identication

with ordinary people, who already in Bergoglio’s very early articulations right

after the Cold War, were also about a way of seeing, and interpreting what

was going on in the world (like Merton’s early analysis at the beginning of

the Cold War). These people were already the “subjects” of their own his-

tory, rather than passive “objects” of someone else’s history (the European

great powers in history of colonialism and imperialism, and the superpowers

during the Cold War). God’s holy faithful people were not a passive “class”,

which others (elites) had to awaken, or enlighten them (conscientization and

class consciousness), so this class could engage in a social struggle with other

classes (i.e. Marxism and Gramsci’s Marxism).

the founding text of critical theory, and their point of departure and diagnosis of modernity (i.e. Francis

Bacon, England’s most important Renaissance philosopher) in Spe Savi, his encyclical letter on Christian

hope (2007, 16-17, 25), but offers an alternative way “Christian hope” can engage with these issues and

problems.

40. Borghesi, 62. Pope Francis’s emphasis on the evangelization of culture goes back Pope Paul VI,

but is also is rooted in the way papal documents, the Second Vatican Council, and the CELAM conferences

dealt with culture, evangelism, and Christianity

41. Borghesi, 63.

42. Ivereigh, 95

43. Ivereigh, 95-96.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

In other words, these ideas from the Rio de la Plate school came together

as a combination of popular religiosity, the evangelization of culture, and the

teología del pueblo.

The new “agents”, even amidst the existing structures,

are – and, always have been, what Bergoglio, and the Rio de la Plata school

came to call, God’s holy faithful people, the poor of God. In other words,

from the teología del pueblo provides, or can begin to provide, a new basis

for agency from the perspective of the agency-structure debate in the theory

of international relations. Perhaps, the argument is similar here to the social

and political location of the evangelical awakening in the 13

century – as a

precursor to the rise of evangelical poverty, the Franciscans, as a response to

the early rise of capitalism, the market economy (i.e. this is a medieval ex-

ample of the agency-structure problem in the medieval “mixed-actor” type of

international system. Pope Francis’s culture of encounter is a similar type of

holistic and integrative response – theology, spirituality, pastoral practice, and

social action, performing, demonstrating the gospel life – as a way to restore

agency – over structure, and with an alternative discourse, which will now be

examined, one which challenges the dominant discourse of the Western great

powers in the age of globalization.

Fourthly, the Rio de la Plata school was also inuenced by Augusto Del

Noce (1910-1989), one of the most important Italian philosophers and politi-

cal thinkers of the post-war period (who also had a was profound inuence on

Methol). It is with their ideas the school was able to develop a wide-ranging

critique of “atheistic humanism” evident not only in Marxism, but also in

capitalism and liberalism.

Bergoglio was not only strongly inuenced by

Henri de Lubac’s analysis of the Church and “spiritual worldliness”, but also

the analysis of “atheistic humanism” by De Lubac and Del Noce.

It is be-

cause of this early analysis of capitalism, liberalism, and globalization what

Pope Francis has said about these things is distorted and misconstrued, and

lead to false accusations he is a Marxist or socialist, without understanding

how the Rio de la Plata school so strongly inuenced his views on ecclesial

geopolitics, political ideologies, and international relations.

This is clear from the analysis of Rio de la Plata school on the Church,

modernity, political ideologies, and globalization. This analysis, which can

44. Ivereigh, 185-186.

45. Ivereigh, 142.

46. Borghesi, 163-176.

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be located at the level of analysis of the international system, is perhaps sur-

prisingly linked to three leading American scholars of international relations

– Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. It is only

Brzezinski, for Del Noce, who contrary to Fukuyama and Huntington, al-

ready in the early, heady, optimistic, post-Cold War period of U.S. unipolarity,

warned against the possible failure of the liberal project – the predicament

we are now in.

Liberals and conservatives (at least in the English-speaking

world) are lost, the end of history – well, has not ended, but it has come back

with a vengeance. The telos of the liberal project, rooted in (linear) doctrine of

progress, has come apart, and they do not know what to do. It came back with

a vengeance in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, and it has now come back

with a vengeance in the rise of a variety of types of secular and religious forms

of populism, nationalism, and extremism.

These inuential American scholars developed key analyses of the end

of the Cold War, and the future of international relations – Francis Fukuy-

ama’s thesis on “the end of history” (1989, 1992), Samuel P. Huntington’s

thesis on the “clash of civilizations” (1993, 1996), and Zbigniew Brzezinski’s

thesis on the “permissive cornucopia”, i.e. the moral and economic crisis of

the West (1993).

Broadly, Borghesi accurately reects what is constituted as

the scholarly mainstream in the United States, as part of his analysis of how

Bergoglio was inuenced by Methol, Del Noce, and the Rio de la Plata school.

In fact, John Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), on

the timeless, and perennial truths of power politics and political realism, was

far more inuential in the early post-Cold war era, than Brzezinski’s, Out of

Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21

Century (1993), which was

ridiculed at the time. This book set out Brzezinski’s thesis on the moral crisis

of the West and capitalism and consumerism, which went against the grain

of the heady, triumphal, American optimism of the time – the collapse of the

47. (2017). “The End of the End of History”. Hedgehog Review: Critical Reections on Contempo-

rary Culture 19/3.

48. Perhaps the return of the concept of “political religion”, developed as an explanation for these

ideologies in the 1930s and 1940s may come back into prominence.

49. Brzezinski, Z. (1993). Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21

Century. Brzezinski

was Professor of International Relations at Columbia University, and was Catholic, and a Polish-born/Pol-

ish-American who was President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor (1977-1981).

SCOTT M. THOMAS

Soviet Union, the end of communism, the defeat of Iraq in the rst Gulf War

(1990-91), and the start of a “new world order” (President George H. Bush).

The Rio de la Plata school’s analysis – and Bergoglio’s, regarding capi-

talism, globalization, and international relations in Argentina, Latin America

in the 1990s, and, now as Pope Francis – is strikingly similar to Brzezinski’s

early warning (1993) to the West against its triumphalism in the aftermath

of end of the Cold War. This is not surprising since his views were mediated

by Methol Ferré and the Rio de la Plata school (Del Noce died in December

1989). What made Brzezinski’s analysis so prescient for them is that it antici-

pated the failure of the liberal project since the 1990s, and especially after the

nancial crisis of 2008, and the consequences of the rise of poverty, inequality,

populism, nationalism, and religious nationalism. Brzezinski, far from glory-

ing in the triumphalism of the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism

(even though he was a strong anti-communist), argued this brought neither

economic stability nor social democracy to the former Soviet Union, nor cen-

tral (Eastern) Europe, or to the rest of the world. The end of communism or

totalitarianism (what he calls the “coercive Utopia”), has not led to democratic

consolidation, but to a time of “fragmentation” – disunity in Europe, danger-

ous eruptions in Islamic republics, and in the U.S. and in the West, the evils of

a “permissive cornucopia of innite desires”, and appetites – material, sensu-

al, and sexual, now spreading to the new central European democracies, with

unrestrained hedonism, self-gratication, and self-indulgence. This has led to

the collapse of Western moral and spiritual values, a spiritual desolation remi-

niscent of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s critique of the West (in the late 1970s),

and later John-Paul II, critique of capitalism and consumerism in democratic

Poland and the West (late 1990s). Brzezinski’s prescient argument, greed has

blinded the eyes of the rich minority to the needs of the poor and suffering

in many parts of the world, is now remarkably reminiscent of Pope Francis’s

early attack on the globalization of indifference to the needs of poor when he

visited Lampedusa when his ponticate began.

This is a brief background to the concepts underlying Pope Francis’s

contention we are now living – and, for some time, have been living, in a

global economic and moral crisis, and a time of world fragmentation. What

Bergoglio observed in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, and in Latin America, and

50. Vilas, C. M. (1994). “Latin America in the `New World Orderʼ: Prospects for Democracy”. In-

ternational Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 8/2, 257-282.

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what he articulated as Archbishop of Buenos Aires (and it was Benedict XVI

who made him archbishop), was that globalization leads to what he called

a “culture of fragmentation” and “culture of non-integration in the world”.

This seems to be saying something stronger – than conventional criticisms of

globalization, deeply rooted in his daily pastoral practice, for it is saying glo-

balization leads to a culture of fragmentation and a culture of non-integration,

a deeply embedded vision, something that is almost second nature, a vision of

people and things as disposable when they are no longer needed.

What Pope

Francis says is now necessary – is beyond the perspective of what constitutes

the mainstream study of international relations. He says, what is necessary is

that ‘we must go out of ourselves,’ and this is one of his key phrases to un-

derstand what the culture of encounter is, what it is about, and how we should

act in the world, i.e. what section 2 identied in critical theory – as theory as

everyday social practice in international relations. What Bergoglio called the

“two transcendences” was how we should “go beyond ourselves” – rstly, in

our encounter with the God (concept of spirituality as prayer, meditation, and

contemplation set out in section1); and, secondly, through our encounter with

our neighbour in service, starting with those most in need, on the margins, the

periphery of society.

4. ConClusion

It has been a tradition since the sixth century for a new pope to choose

a papal name, one which honours a saint or a previous pope (or both). Jorge

51. Fares dates the earliest articulations of Pope Francis’s concept of the culture of encounter to the

time when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires to quite specic events: (i) a lecture, “The Need for a Polit-

ical Anthropology: A Pastoral Problem” (1989), (ii) signicantly, the Te Deum (short for Te deum lauda-

mus, “Thee, O God, we praise”, a Latin Christian hymn, which goes back to the fourth century), and is

celebrated as a national religious service every year on May 25, 1999, which is Argentina’s national hol-

iday, and it commemorates the revolution of May 25, 1810 that began the process creating the Argentine

state, and (iii) a lecture a few months later, “Education within a Culture of Encounter” (September 1, 1999).

He called for a culture of encounter an antidote to nostalgia and pessimism. In other words, very early on

he recognized, as Benedict XVI before him, the contradictory uniting and fragmenting potential of global-

ization. On Benedict XVI’s analysis of the ambivalence of globalization, see his encyclical, Caritas in Ver-

itate: on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth (June 2009). Fares, D. (2015). The Heart of

Pope Francis, Herder and Herder Books, 41. See also Clark, I. (1997): Globalization and Fragmentation:

International Relations in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge.

52. Fares, D. (2015). The Heart of Pope Francis. Herder and Herder Books, 16-17.

SCOTT M. THOMAS

Mario Bergoglio was the rst pope who dared to choose the name “Francis” –

he said to honour the memory of Francis of Assisi, the saint who was especial-

ly concerned for the poor. St. Francis also cast aside his lavish lifestyle, and by

the way he performed the gospel life, posed a challenge to what Bergoglio al-

ready has called the “luxury, pride, vanity of the civil and ecclesiastical pow-

ers of the time”. His biographers indicate (unlike St. Francis) this simple life

is how he has always lived regardless of his public stature or station in life. In

his signature concept, “the culture of encounter”, which is deeply embedded

in the transformative life story of Francis of Assisi. This story includes a vari-

ety of types of encounter, the roots of Pope Francis’s culture of encounter, the

basic elements of a radical, counter-cultural, way St. Francis performed the

gospel life – encounter, conversion, knowledge, and transformation. This con-

stitutes a specic “way of seeing the world” – a continuity between St. Francis

and Pope Francis – a holistic and integrative way of bringing together theol-

ogy, spirituality, and action in the world, which has led to the development of

the culture of encounter, rst in relation to the impact of globalization on the

poor, the marginalized, and those on the periphery of society in Argentina and

Latin America. Now, it also is the way Pope Francis has performed the gospel

life, as he has drawn attention to how key global issues affect similar people

in every society around the world. He has also started to show how some of

the basic principles of the culture of encounter can be extended in the Mid-

dle East in interreligious dialogue, with Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of

Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, and their co-signing of the Document on Human

Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.

THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOLY SEE

AND THE PEOPLEʼS REPUBLIC OF CHINA FOR

THE APPOINTMENT OF BISHOPS. GENERAL

CONTEXT AND EXPECTATIONS

JuAn iGnACio ArrietA oChoA de ChinChetru

On September 22, 2018 an “interim agreement” was signed in Beijing

between the Holy See and the Peopleʼs Republic of China for appointing bish-

ops. The Diplomatic and religious signicance of this gesture without prec-

edent paves the way for the reconstruction of relations between the two Parties

and the consolidation of the Catholic Church in the Middle Kingdom.

1. Provisions And unCertAinties oF A Period not FAr AwAy

This is a rst concrete result achieved after long years of slow negotiations

that during the Ponticate of Francis have shown signs of hopeful progress.

The rst of these publicly known signals came on the occasion of the

Popeʼs trip to Korea in August 2014. The airplane of the Pope was authorized,

for the rst time, to y over Chinese territory and, as is the protocol on these

trips, when entering country air space the Pope sent a telegram to President Xi

Jinping in these terms: “upon entering the Chinese airspace, I extend the best

1. For the most recent history of these relationships, see the various works contained in the vol-

ume Giovagnoli, A.-Giuniper E. (a cura di) (2019). LʼAccordo tra Holy See and Cina. I cattolici cinesi tra

passato e futuro, with Prefazione Card. Pietro Parolin. Vatican City 2019. See also Parolin, P. (2017). “Il

`ponteʼ creato da Celso Costantini tra the Holy See and the Cina”. Ephemerides Iuris Canonici 57, 5-18.

JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA OCHOA DE CHINCHETRU

wishes to your Excellency and all your citizens and invoke divine blessings

for the good and well-being of the nation”.

On the return ight, the Pope told reporters the intensity with which he

had lived, along with the pilots, those rst minutes in which he ew over the

Chinese sky: “Then I returned to my post,” he continued, “and I began to pray

for that great and noble Chinese people, a wise people”.

And when on that same occasion he was specically asked if he wanted

to visit China, he replied without delay:

What if I wanted to go to China? Sure, tomorrow! Yes. We respect the Chi-

nese people. The Church asks only freedom to carry out its mission, to do its

work: it does not set any other condition. We must not forget that fundamental

document for the Chinese problem that was the Letter sent to the Chinese by

Pope Benedict XVI. That letter is still current: reread it. The Holy See is always

open to contacts, always, because it feels true esteem for the Chinese people.

The Pope referred to the letter of 30 June 2007 which Benedict XVI wrote

to the bishops, priests, consecrated persons and lay faithful in the Peopleʼs

Republic of China which sought, above all, to promote unity among the two

Catholic communities that over time had been formed in the country:

the so-

called “patriotic” community, which had accepted the conditions set by the

authorities to t into the ofcial structure of the “United Front” Party, and the

so-called “clandestine” community, which had not accepted those rules.

The objective of Benedict XVIʼs letter was therefore not political, but

spiritual. He did not try to accuse the authorities, but to give an answer, taking

into account the specic situation of the Country, to the questions that Chinese

Catholics asked about how to behave in a Christian manner in the face of the

demands of the environment.

Demonstrating a deep spiritual affection for all Catholics in China and

a cordial esteem for the entire Chinese people, the Pope declared abolished

the faculties that had been given in the past to the “clandestine” Church, con-

sidering that the emergency situation of Catholics in the country had been

2. http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2014/08/14/0571/01247.html

(accessed: 2019/05/14).

3. http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2014/08/19/0585/01294.html

(accessed: 2019/05/14).

4. http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/it/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070527_

china.html (accessed: 2019/05/14).

THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOLY SEE AND THE PEOPLEʼS REPUBLIC OF CHINA...

substantially behind and now, and in turn, the priority is the effective union of

the two Catholic communities that had distanced themselves.

Regarding the authorities, Benedict XVI declared himself

fully available and open to a serene and constructive dialogue… to nd a solu-

tion to the various problems related to the Catholic community, and thus reach

the desired normalization of relations between the Holy See and the government

of the Peopleʼs Republic of China, in the certainty that Catholics, with the free

profession of their faith and a generous testimony of their life, contribute, as

good citizens, to the good of the Chinese people.

Pope Benedictʼs initiative in 2007 opened a period of dialogue and en-

couraging auspices, but then they did not have the expected fruit. Between

2010 and 2011, perhaps because of mutual misunderstandings, episcopal or-

dinations were restarted in China without a pontical mandate, a practice initi-

ated in April 1958 that had been forming a Catholic hierarchy outside Rome

and parallel to the bishops who remained faithful (clandestine). The truth is

that, over the following years, many of the bishops who had been unlawfully

ordained then requested and received communion with the Holy See.

The existence of a hierarchy of bishops affects the civil authority, which

gave rise, in addition, to its own legal system in ecclesiastical matters particu-

lar to China. In all these years, the United Front – Party entity that integrates

and directs the ve religious confessions constitutionally recognized in China,

including the Catholic one – has produced a whole legislation on religious

matters that must observe the Catholic hierarchy admitted to “registration”

(that is, the set of bishops, presbyters, etc., inscribed in an ofcial “regis-

ter” that authorizes them to act as such). Thus, that legislation, in addition to

state civil norms in religious matters (on property administration, registra-

tion of religious entities, etc.), is also composed of “canonical” norms (on

the organization of dioceses, parishes, on appointments). These are, norms on

strictly ecclesial matters, formally produced by the “Episcopal Conference”,

created by the government (not recognized by Rome), which congregates a

certain number of “registered” bishops. There is, therefore, what we might call

5. http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/it/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070527_

china-dichiaraz.html (accessed: 2019/05/14).

JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA OCHOA DE CHINCHETRU

a peculiar “canonical” order, parallel in part to that of the universal Church: a

reality that must necessarily be taken into account.

Before the new consecrations without papal mandate, the Holy See was

forced to declare illegitimate the episcopal ordinations that took place on the

th 7

and July 16

, 2011.

However, in the absence of specic information –

mainly due to the precariousness of communications – the effective degree of

freedom with which each of the consecrated bishops involved had acted could

not be assessed. Therefore, it was problematic to make a formal statement

on the excommunication latae sententiae (automatic) provided in can. 1382

of the Code of Canon Law on purpose for those who “confers someone the

episcopal consecration without papal mandate, as well as [for] the one who

receives the consecration from him”.

The new consecrated bishops, on the

other hand, had previously been warned of the consequences that these acts

could have, so that it was reasonable to take an act of responsibility attached

to their free acceptance.

In this regard, the Pontical Council for Legislative Texts also had to de-

clare, interpreting can. 1382 of the Code of Canon Law. The Pontical Coun-

cil established that the crime of illegitimate episcopal consecration is com-

mitted by all co-consecrators of the new bishop –it is traditional that three or

more bishops intervene in a new episcopal ordination– adding that the respon-

sibility of each of them and consequently, the effectiveness of the automatic

penalty latae sententiae depended on the personal freedom with which they

had intended the act.

6. This fucking see: Bappenheim, S. T. (2018). “Ordinamento cinese in religious matters: Cenni di

somiglianza al Tedesco system. Ephemerides Iuris Canonici, in press.

7. http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2011/07/04/0421/01055.html

(accessed: 2019/05/14).

8. http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2011/07/16/0438/01096.html

(accessed: 2019/05/14).

9. “Da varie fonti di informazione the Holy See was the Corrente che alcuni dei Vescovi, contattati

dalle Autorità Civili, avevano manifestato volontà propria di non partecipare ad un’ordinazione illegittima,

mettendo in anche atto di Resistenza form: nonostante cio, i Presuli sarebbero stati obbligati to prendervi

part”. (Statement of the Holy See on July 16, 2011, ibid.).

10. Cf. Pontical Council for Legislative Texts, Declaration of June 6, 2011, in Communicationes

43, 30-33.

THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOLY SEE AND THE PEOPLEʼS REPUBLIC OF CHINA...

2. the diPlomACy oF Culture

This crisis was closed, as has been said, on the occasion of the Popeʼs trip

to South Korea, as he ew over the Chinese sky with the message of warm

wishes to President Xi.

Subsequently, bilateral contacts have continued in various ways. In an

important interview he granted to the Agency “Reuters” on June 20, 2018,

when asked by the journalist about the Vaticanʼs relations with China, the

Pope said they were already in a good spot and that they were following three

different paths.

First, the Pope said, are the ofcial relations, conducted by the Second

Section of the Vatican Secretary of State, with scheduled periodic conversa-

tions and meetings with delegations of the Chinese government, held in Rome

or Beijing.

Second, there were human relationships, exchanges of courtesy and good

understanding messages or meetings between people. The Pope described

them as peripheral human channels that should not be discarded, because they

expressed the goodwill of both the Holy See and the Chinese government:

they served to improve the respective knowledge and strengthen the trust of

one another.

Thirdly, the Pope mentioned that the main channel of approach to China

was for him, the cultural route, which has later been called the “diplomacy of

culture”. The Pope recalled then how in recent years the academic and cultural

contacts between the Vatican and China had increased and that there were

advanced projects in this area.

To name a few, it is worth mentioning, for example, meetings held at the

Pontical University of the Holy Cross, and other Roman ecclesiastical Uni-

versities, with delegations or exponents of Chinese culture or artistic world, or

conferences held by a member of the Curia in Beijing, presenting the hierarchi-

cal structure of the Catholic Church, at the Chinese Academy of Social Sci-

ences, or the international relations of the Holy See at MINZU University, also

in Beijing. Much more political and media relevance had, in this same context,

the visit of the President of the Pontical Academy of Social Sciences to China

in February 2018.

Many other similar initiatives could also be noted here.

11. Cf. Ai Jun, Bishop truth about Chinaʼs states religious freedom, Global Times, February 8, 2018;

Redazione, Bishop Sanchez Sorondo. The realizzatrice Migliore della Cina dottrina sociale della Chiesa,

AsiaNews, 7 febbraio 2018.

JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA OCHOA DE CHINCHETRU

In fact, from some time ago, it was becoming clear that the path of artistic

and cultural exchange was the way to prepare for the normalization of rela-

tions between the two Parties. It was, for example, evident in the course of

visits to Rome by Chinese personnel outside ofcial circles – such as Dr. Zhu

Jiancheng, Secretary General of the China Culture Investment Fund, or art-

ist Yan Zhang – who had already intervened long ago in Chinaʼs approach to

Middle Eastern countries through this type of “culture diplomacy”. On the oc-

casion of one of these meetings, the China Culture Investment Fund presented

to the Holy Father, on behalf of the Chinese people, two important works of

art by Master Zhang, bound for the Vatican Museums. This present –he told

himself then–

was the response to the message sent by the Pope in 2014 to

President Xi when he ew over Chinese sky on his one-way trip to South

Korea.

In the framework of contacts of this type, for example, the form that may

be considered perhaps the main concrete expression of this “diplomacy of

culture” took shape. On November 21, 2017, the ofcial announcement of

an exchange of art exhibitions between the Vatican and China took place in

the Sala Stampa of the Holy See, with exhibitions that were to take place si-

multaneously in the Vatican Museums and the Forbidden City from Beijing.

The interventions of the guests of the Celestial Empire, which can be read

in the ofcial statement,

are unequivocal about the instrumental nature of

these two exhibitions as a way to achieve more prominent results. In addi-

tion, as planned, a week later an analogous presentation to the Chinese press

of the exhibition project took place at the Ofcial Government Information

Center. What was not, however, expected is that the only daughter of President

Xi Jimping, and a nephew of the President himself, of recognized political

solvency, would participate signicantly in this press conference in Beijing.

Finally, the opening of the exhibition in the capital city took place on May 28,

2019, amid a general assessment of the high signicance of the event.

12. Expressly said Secretary General of the China Culture Investment Fund, on the intervention of

November 21, 2017, as shown in the link next note and translate as follows: “On 31 May this year, we do-

nated to Pope two great works of master Zhang Yan on behalf of the Chinese people. This is the response to

the greeting addressed by Pope 2014 to the Secretary General Xi and the Chinese people”.

13. http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2017/11/21/0814/01758.html.

(accessed: 2019/5/14). Cf. Wineld, N. (2017/11/21). “Vatican, China stall in exchange art amid hard di-

plomacy”. The Washington Post.

14. Cf. http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1152206.shtml (accessed: 2019/05/14); A. Giovagnoli,

A. (2019/06/03). “Tra Holy See and Cina è l’ora della cultura della diplomazia”. Avvenire.

THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOLY SEE AND THE PEOPLEʼS REPUBLIC OF CHINA...

This has not been, however, neither the rst nor the only cultural expres-

sion of relations between the Peopleʼs Republic of China and the Holy See.

The Holy See has been invited by the Chinese government to participate with

its own Stand at the International Horticultural Exhibition opened in Beijing

on April 28, 2019.

The initiative is also part of the path of culture that is

moving towards the normalization of relations, as the participation of two

Chinese bishops along with the Secretary of State.

A few weeks later, an

important Congress was organized by the “Confucius Center” of the Catholic

University of the Sacro Cuore of Milan, on the occasion of the centenary of

the encyclical Maximun illud.

All this is part of the global picture of human and cultural relations in

which the Provisional Agreement signed in Beijing for the appointment of

Bishops was registered on September 12, 2018.

3. ACCePt the risk oF trAdinG

The opposition of opinions that, outside and within the Church, called

for any initiative that led to some kind of agreement with the Chinese authori-

ties is known. The contrast was nothing more than the expression of the set

of hopes and uncertainties, of risks and fears with which, in good law, it was

perceived by one and the other a step of this magnitude. The debate intensi-

ed considerably since the beginning of 2018 when, with a certain probability

of success, the envoys of the Holy See tried to prepare the conditions that

made an agreement viable. From the news that arose at that time, it could be

concluded that it was necessary to compose certain personal situations within

the Chinese hierarchy, in order to be able to enter into the minimum boundary

established by the authorities of the Country. This information indicated that

certain legitimate bishops were being asked for their availability to modify the

15. http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2019/04/16/0320/00645.htl;

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1148017.shtml (accessed: 2019/05/14).

16. Particular importance was in this context the interview granted by the Secretary of State for

Global Times, published on May 12, 2019, where Cardinal Parolin illustrated the progress in relations be-

tween the Holy See and the Peopleʼs Republic Cina: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1149623.shtml

(2019/6/3).

17. Cfr. Valente G. (2019/05/13). “Due vescovi alla cinesi Cattolica di Milano, insieme a Parolin”.

Vatican Insider: https://www.lastampa.it/2019/05/13/vaticaninsider/due-vescovi-cinesi-alla-cattolica-di-

milano-insieme-a-parolin-meUcOrf0kb5hKk94LFaymK/pagina.html (accessed: 2019/5/14).

JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA OCHOA DE CHINCHETRU

position that the Holy See had previously conferred to them and relegated to

a lower level.

Some voices of high prelates were heard warning about the negative con-

sequences that any agreement with the current government regime in China

could have, while the Holy See expressed the need to reach an agreement as

an imperative of an ecclesial nature

and despite the contradictory news that

came from some places about the application of provisions that conditioned

personal and collective religious freedom.

However, not all the information that was put into circulation was disin-

terested. Some misrepresented specic approaches or facts, such as the case

of Bishop Zhuang, Shantou, 87, described in some Western media as prelate

of the clandestine community – to which, in fact, he had never acceded – that

had been forced to give up his position to an ofcial candidate.

Others took

the distances of the interpretations that were made, such as the “clandestine”

bishop Giuseppe Wei, requesting the Catholics of Hong Kong, Macao and Tai-

wan, critics of the agreement that was being forged, not to hinder and refrain

from speaking on behalf of Catholics in China, who followed the ongoing

contacts with condence and delity to the Holy See.

In the middle of June 2018, when few months were left to conclude the

agreement, a unique exchange of signals took place between both Parties

through the press. As indicated above, on June 20, an interview with the Pope

by Philip Pullella was published on the Reuters Agency site, which, along

with other issues, dealt with the issue of relations with China and the three

ways for which they were making progress: the ofcial one, that of personal

relations and cultural examples.

18. Cf. Lin, J. B. (2018/1/22). “Il Vaticano domanda ai vescovi legittimi di da farsi part per lasciare

spazio a quelli illegittimi”. Asian News; Ruohan, Z. X.-L. (2018/01/25). “Vatican Demands Chinese under-

ground church bishops step down: report”. Global Times.

19. Cf. Redazione (2018/02/08). “Retired Vatican cardinal hits back at over Deal with China”. As-

sociated Press; Lesegretain, C. (2018/02/01). “Le Vatican Reafrm sa volonté d’accord avec la Chine”.

La Croix; Giovagnoli, A. (2018/02/01). “A chiara anche unità di Strada per la Chiesa cinese”. Avvernire;

Chambraud P. (2018/02/01) “Lʼouverture du Tensions south Vatican vis-à-vis de la Chine”. Le Monde;

Meynard, T. M. (2018/02/03). “Vie per lʼaggiornamento della Chiesa cattolica cinese”. Civiltà Cattolica;

Cristiansen, D. (2018/02/12). “Why the Vaticanʼs potential Deal with China is a good thing”. America.

20. Cf. Martorell, J. (2018/02/03). “China even more closely the siege on religions”. Efe.

21. Cf. Valente, G. (2018/02/08). “Vera storia di vescovo Zhuang fedele al Papa e `patrioricoʼ”. Vat-

ican Insider.

22. Cf. Valente, G. (2018/02/26). “Cina, vescovo il `undergroundʼ. Seguiamo il potato ci diamo the

Signore”. Vatican Insider.

THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOLY SEE AND THE PEOPLEʼS REPUBLIC OF CHINA...

But, in addition, the Pope was explicit about the personal attitude with

which he himself faced the problem, about his conviction that they were

necessary steps and his discrepancy regarding some opinions expressed also

within the Church. Directly asked about the disagreement expressed on the

subject by a specic dignitary, the Pope expressed understanding by the suspi-

cion that such warnings reected, and added immediately by deciding with all

the strength of the ofce he occupies at the head of the Church: “the dialogue

is a risk, but I prefer the risk to the sure defeat of not dialoguing”.

These words of the Pope were transcribed and glossed immediately in

a documented article appeared in Global Times on July 11 signed by Zhang

Yu.

As the experts immediately observed, it was not the routine comment of

an expert; in the case of the “informal” newspaper of the Beijing government

and taking into account the content it was about, it sounded more like an “edi-

torial” designed to mark a position of greater authority.

This article took up the Pope’s considerations on divergent opinions and

the need to risk and, after echoing the internal resistance to the Church em-

phasizing the role of American politicians, reported the opinion of Professor

Yang Fenggang (Purdue University’s Center on Religion and Chinese So-

ciety) that correctly identied the reason that moved the Church to seek an

agreement with the Chinese authorities: the reconciliation between the two

Catholic communities (“patriotic” and “clandestine”) that had been formed in

China since the constitution of the Peopleʼs Republic (1949) and the Patriotic

Association (1957). But, in addition, the journalist then added another opinion

of the same professor that no one had ever formulated before, and that neither

can it be thought that he casually slipped into the Global Times article. It was

23. The full text in Italian answer to the next question: “Come eat risponde alle preoccupazioni

quelle Cardinale Zen? Reply. Il Cardinale Zen insegnava teologia nei seminari patriotici. Penso che è un

po ʼspaventato. Anche lʼetà inuisce forse un poʼ. È un uomo buono. And I venuto to parlare with me,

lʼRicevuto ho, ma è un po ʼspaventato. Il dialogue è un rischio, ma che il preferisco non rischio the sicura

scontta di non dialogare. Per quanto riguarda i tempi, qualcuno che sono tempi cinesi says. Io dico che

sono i tempi di Dio, Vanti, tranquilli” (riprodotto da Il seismograph, June 20, 2018). See also: Seppia, C.

(2018/07/11). “Il Papa your Cile, immigrazione, climate and dialogue with Cina”. Vatican News.

24. Cf. Yu, Z. (2018/07/11). “Conservatives in Catholic Church close ranks to stall Dialogue with

China, but won’t succeed: analysts”. Global Times.

25. Cf. Giovagnoli, A. (2018/07/13). “Il Global Times its a possible visit in Cina. Pensieri dalla

China: il più di Papa Nixon”. Avvenire.

JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA OCHOA DE CHINCHETRU

claimed that an eventual visit of the Pope to China would have a meaning and

an impact greater than that of President Nixonʼs visit to China in 1972.

The Chinese effort to achieve this visit was evident and had been ex-

pressed in various contexts during the previous (and following) months, and

the article in Global Times presented that as objective as the culmination of

a whole crescendo of reciprocal greetings, invitations and exchange of gifts

from Pope Francis and President Xi Jimping in recent years, which the jour-

nalist himself mentioned.

4. the AGreement on the APPointment oF bishoPs And other meAsures oF the

holy see

Finally, as he had been announced from the Chinese ofcial press days

before

on September 22, 2018, the Holy See issued the signing of the agree-

ment, while announcing two other important decisions.

First, an “Ofcial Communiqué” reported the Provisional Agreement on

the appointment of Bishops that had been signed that same day in Beijing by

the under-Secretary of the Section of the Secretary of State for Relations with

States and of the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Peopleʼs Republic of

China, acting as heads of the respective delegations.

The Communiqué fur-

ther afrms that the agreement was the result of a gradual and reciprocal rap-

prochement of the Parties and also a long journey of weighted negotiations.

In addition, a periodic assessment of its implementation is planned, which

creates the conditions for a broader bilateral collaboration in the context of

a fruitful institutional dialogue that positively contributes to the life of the

Catholic Church in China, to good of the Chinese people and for peace in the

world.

26. “Thinking about Global affairs, Vatican-Cina relations could be the single most important rela-

tions in the word today. If Pope Francis could visit China, ITS signicance and impacts could be bigger

than Richard Nixonʼs President visit to China in 1972. It will be an earth-shaking and word-changing de-

velopment”.

27. Cf. Ruohan, L. (2018/09/18). “Vatican to send delegation to China before possible bishopʼs

deal”. Global Times; Strong, M. (2018/09/18). “Hong Kong warms cardinal Vatican Reches of split if

agreement With China”. Global Times; Ning, Y. (2018/09/19). “China-Vatican rapprochement good for

Catholics”. Global Times.

28. Ofcial statement in LʼOssservatore Romano, 2018/09/23, 4; Communicationes 50, 2018, 401.

THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOLY SEE AND THE PEOPLEʼS REPUBLIC OF CHINA...

The brief Communiqué and the reference to the development of bilateral

relations added nothing to the content of the Agreement as such,

so, at least

in the short term, it will have to be deduced from the concrete behaviors and

the reactions that arise in both Parties.

The second important announcement of September 22 was the decision to

admit to full communion all the bishops who, until then, had been irregularly

ordered by indication of the governing authorities: this was, clearly, another

“condition” of the same Agreement. For this purpose, the Holy See published

an “Information Note on the Catholic Church in China”,

afrming that “in

order to sustain the proclamation of the Gospel in China, the Holy Father

Francis has decided to readmit in the full ecclesial communion the `ofcialʼ

Bishops ordained without a pontical mandate”. Then followed the nominal

relationship of seven bishops, plus that of an eighth prelate who died a year

and a half ago, “who, before dying, had expressed the desire to be reconciled

with the Holy See”.

That “Information Note” also manifested the Popeʼs sponsorship that this

reconciliation of the bishops consents to overcome the wounds of the past, and

allows the Chinese Catholic community to live in a more fraternal collabora-

tion as a witness to the love and forgiveness of Christ.

Finally, the third announcement, contextually released with the previous

two by the Vatican Press Room on September 22, was the erection of the dio-

cese of Chengde

as a suffragan of Beijing, located in the civil district of the

“Chengde City” in Hebei Province, modifying the connes of the dioceses

29. Bishop Quinglu Meng, vice president of the so-called Episcopal Conference of China revealed

on March 3, 2019 that the provisional accord has two years of existence, the end of which could be extended

or renewed, and added that the procedure laid down conceded Pope within one month to conrm or not the

nominee. According to information then published by Appledaily on March 6, Cardinal Fernando Filoni

both as mons. Fang Xingyao conrmed that the agreement had two years of operation (https://hk.news.ap-

pledaily.com/local/daily/article/20190306/20627095).

30. Three days later, on the ight back from Tallinn, the Pope revealed to journalists who had been

the protagonists of these agreements patients: “La squadra vaticana ha lavorato tanto, vorrei fare alcuni

nomi: monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, con pazienza ha dialogato per anni, per anni. Poi Gianfranco Rota

Graziosi, un umile curiale di 72 anni che voleva farsi prete per andare in parrocchia ed è rimasto in Curia

per aiutare in questo processo. E poi il Segretario di Stato (Pietro Parolin, ndr), che è un uomo molto devoto,

ma ha una speciale devozione alla lente: tutti i documenti li studia: punto, virgola, accenni. Questo mi dà

una sicurezza molto grande. Questa squadra con queste qualità è andata avanti”; Tornelli, A. (2018/09/25).

“Io sono responsibile dellʼaccordo con la Cina. Ci sarà dialogo sui candidati, ma i vescovi li nomina il

Papa”. Vatican Insider.

31. See LʼOssservatore Romano, September 23, 2018, 5; Communicationes 50, 2018, 401-402.

32. See LʼOssservatore Romano, September 23, 2018, 5; Communicationes 50, 2018, 402.

JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA OCHOA DE CHINCHETRU

of Jehol/Jinzhou and Chifeng. Also, in this case everything suggests another

“condition” established by the Chinese government, which also allowed “to

recognize” as head of that headquarters to mons. Joseph Guo, general secre-

tary of the Chinese “Episcopal Conference”, and for three terms a member of

the National Peopleʼs Congress (the Chinese Parliament), who had been ap-

pointed in 2010 Bishop of Chengde.

In fact, mons. Guo would be one of the two bishops from the Peopleʼs

Republic of China who would participate a few days later, in Rome, as del-

egates of the Chinese Bishops in holding the regular meeting of the Synod of

Bishops on Youth.

This has been, perhaps, the rst notorious consequence of

the signing of the Agreements.

The publication of this news was accompanied on September 22 by state-

ments of the Secretary of State in which he pointed out punctually what the

objectives were pursued by the Holy See.

The objective of the Holy See –he said– is a pastoral objective that is to help

local Churches to enjoy conditions of greater freedom, autonomy and organiza-

tion, so that they can devote themselves to the mission of proclaiming the Gospel

and the integral development of the human person and society. For the rst time,

after so many decades, all bishops in China are in communion with the Bishop of

Rome. There is a need for unity… and the agreement is put in this perspective: it

is an instrument that we hope can help in this process, with the collaboration of

all…, to live an authentic spirit of reconciliation between brothers, with concrete

gestures that help overcome misunderstandings of the past.

All the indications of the Holy See have pointed, with extreme clarity, in

the same direction. The Agreement tries, rst and foremost, to help solve an

ecclesial problem of unity of two communities that had been consolidating

in China: a type of disunity that damages the Church in its deepest spiritual

structure, understandable as the reasons for some and others, also validated by

33. This is not the time to develop the issue, but it should be noted that since the middle of last

century, the Chinese authorities have changed for various reasons diocesan districts of the Church, so

today in many cases do not match collecting the Pontical Annuario and recognizes the Church. On this

point, see: Arrieta, J. I. (2009). “L’organizzazione ecclesiastica in Cina: lacune, problemi e prospettive”.

Ius Ecclesiae 21, 525-548.

34. Cf. Valente, G. (2018/09/26). “Vescovi chinesi potranno prendere part to prossimo dei Vescovi

Synod”. Vatican Insider.

35. Cf. LʼOssservatore Romano, September 23, 2018, 5; Communicationes 50, 2018, 403.

THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOLY SEE AND THE PEOPLEʼS REPUBLIC OF CHINA...

so many signs of loyalty to the faith and long suffering of those who suffered

with patience.

“The complex reality of China and the fact that there does not appear to

be a uniform praxis with regard to the application of the regulations for reli-

gious affairs”, determine successively the publication of the Holy See, on the

28 of June 2019, states most concretely Pastoral guidelines of the Holy See

concerning the civil registration of clergy in China, regarding the “approach

to be adopted in relation to the obligation of presenting an application for civil

registration”.

5. ProsPeCts For the develoPment oF the interim AGreement

It is not necessary to collect here the comments of the opposite sign that

followed the signing of this provisional Agreement, which reproduced the po-

sitions expressed before the signature. Not being in the public domain the

content of the Agreements there was no new data to comment. However, it

has been made known that the agreement respects the inviolable right of the

Pope to accept candidates presented for the episcopacy. Most likely, the se-

lection and communication procedures that followed for this will be peculiar

and it is quite likely that, at least in the form, initially follow as soon as the

Chinese norms referred to above are established. In more general terms, the

assessment of what has happened in the following months seems satisfactory,

aware of having inaugurated working and communication methods that are

functioning.

I will limit myself only to some brief notes on these Agreements and on

their possible evolution in the near future, by way of conclusion.

36. See Summarizing the work of Giovagnoli, A. (2019). “Lʼaccordo tra the Holy See and the Re-

pubblica Popolare gird: annotazioni Giuridiche”. Ephemererides Iuris Canonici, in press.

37. See: Holy See, “Pastoral guidelines of the Holy See concerning the civil registration of clergy in

China”: http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2019/06/28/0554/01160.html (ac-

cessed: 2019/5/14).

38. In this regard, see the interview given by Cardinal Secretary of State to Global Times on May 12,

2019, which draws an important overview of the positive progress of these relations and its international

signicance, not only for China and for the Church in that country: http://www.globaltimes.cn/con-

tent/1149623.shtml (accessed: 2019/05/14).

JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA OCHOA DE CHINCHETRU

5.1. Unprecedented event

In the rst place, it is difcult to deny the character of historical and un-

precedented event that the Provisional Agreement between the Peopleʼs Re-

public of China and the Holy See has meant for the appointment of bishops.

For the rst time, explicitly, the governing authorities recognize the right of

the Roman Pontiff to say the last word on the appointment of a bishop in Chi-

na; that is to say, on the appointment of a subject –letʼs not forget– that, from

the Chinese point of view, in a way, is considered as an “ofcial position”.

To recognize that no bishop can be appointed outside the Pope is also to

implicitly admit that this type of intervention by the Pope does not interfere

with the constitutional limit that prevents any interference that may limit the

independence of the Peopleʼs Republic of China. First of all, because the Holy

See does not respond to a State scheme that may put at risk at least the inde-

pendence and autonomy of any Country. But, in addition, such recognition

responds to the intimate structure of the Church and the “immanent” character

of the universal dimension (with its principal expressions, of the Pope and of

the College of Bishops) and of the particular dimension in which the Church

is presented in each place under the guidance of the respective bishop (LG 23).

Certainly, this assessment requires understanding the spiritual nature of

the Church. However, admitting the pontical intervention is, as I say, ap-

proaching the understanding of the universal dimension of the Church and

the non-exclusively local character of the appointment of these Chinese bish-

ops, who, being in communion, become members of the Episcopal College, in

whom the supreme power in the Church resides collegially (can. 336 CIC).

5.2. Transition period

Secondly, the signing of the Agreement opens a period of laborious im-

plementation of the agreed contents, which will not be free of contradictions

and conicts, not because of lack of cohesion of the ruling class, at different

39. “The Provisional Agreement of 22 September 2018, recognising the particular role of the Suc-

cessor of Peter, logically leads the Holy See to understand and interpret the `independenceʼ of the Catholic

Church in China not in an absolute sense, namely as separation from the Pope and the Universal Church,

but rather relative to the political sphere, as happens everywhere in the world in the relations between the

Universal Church and the particular Churches”. Cf. Pastoral guidelines of the Holy See…

THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOLY SEE AND THE PEOPLEʼS REPUBLIC OF CHINA...

levels and places of great a Country as is China, but also because the ap-

plication of the Agreement as such may lead to divergent interpretations and

initiatives.

It is a period, then, in need of serenity and understanding, in the face of

inevitable short-term episodes, to keep the direction of travel clear. Decades

of lack of contact and distrust cannot be overcome in a few weeks. The Chi-

nese authorities continue to require clergy and religious to register as such

to be able to “legitimately” exercise (according to civil law) their ministry,

which, depending on the places, may entail different consequences and risks

(also for faith), according to the line adopted by the local authorities. In this

sense the Holy See, and in the rst place Pope Francis with his Message to the

Chinese Catholics of October 2018

try to encourage the Catholic faithful to

keep hope and serenity alive, behaving with the responsibility that the specic

circumstances require.

5.3. Personal solutions

On the other hand, and it would be a third point, there is news that the

Vatican activity continues in its efforts to accommodate in the best possible

way the personal situations of the episcopacy caused, mainly, by the admis-

sion to communion of the seven new bishops that have been indicated. Eve-

rything seems to indicate that these were also conditions of the Chinese side

during the negotiation process. This implies, in some cases, generous personal

sacrices of bishops who have always been in communion with Rome

. From

these steps, the Holy See published news on February 3, 2019, explaining the

pastoral assignment that the Pope had conferred on each of the seven bishops

received in communion on the previous September 22.

40. Francisco (2018/10/19). “Pope Francis Message to Chinese Catholics and the universal Church,

of the 26

October 2018”. LʼOsservatore Romano, 4-5.

41. To cite just one, the mons. Guo Xijin, bishop of Mindong, who gave place to the newly legiti-

mated mons. Vincenzo Khan Silu: http://www.asianews.it/notizie-it/Mindong:-mons.-Guo-Xijin,-vescovo-

sotterraneo,-lascia-il-posto-a-mons.-Zhan-Silu,-ex-scomunicato-45738.html (accessed: 2019/5/14).

42. Segreteria di Stato (2019/02/03). “Informazione sulla Chiesa Cattolica in Cina”. Osservatore

Romano, 2.

JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA OCHOA DE CHINCHETRU

5.4. Confrontation with the regulatory system

Fourth, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that, as already noted,

the Chinese ecclesial system has been producing its own rules and proce-

dures of action that, at least at rst, will have to be made compatible. There

is, among them for example, a Regulation on the appointment of Bishops of

2012, which provides for the selection and appointment of candidates by the

Episcopal Conference, and the subsequent registration by the governing au-

thorities.

Even if the Agreement now signed unquestionably provides for the free

intervention of the Pope in the appointments, it is likely that this principle can

be combined with the respect of formalities established in the regulations in

force in the Country. It seems that it has happened recently in the elective pro-

cesses followed in two different dioceses (Jining and Hanzhong) with respect

to a single candidate.

5.5. Possible approaches

On the other hand, the requirement to preserve the country’s own identity

and the legitimate autonomy in cultural expressions and pastoral government

are also presented to the Church. In that context there is talk of “sinization” of

the Catholic Church in China, and also of “democratization”: two aspects that,

as proven by twenty centuries of history and the most recent development of

Catholic theology, can also be compatible to some extent with the demands of

communion that the faith of the Church requires.

Having accepted the intervention of the Pope in the appointment of

the Bishops, the independence and autonomy that is requested for the local

Churches cannot raise particular theological problems, because the Church

does not present itself as a “federation” but as a “communion” of Churches, in

which the diocesan Pastor – that is, the Bishop – does not represent the Bishop

of Rome, as the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium left well dened, but

by Christ himself. The local Churches are autonomous, and except in matters

of “unity” that belong to the common heritage of all the Church, the diocesan

43. Cf. Valente, G. (2019/04/18). “Cina, to Mindong anche il vescovo ausiliare Guo concelebrates

Messa crismale. Vatican Insider.

THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOLY SEE AND THE PEOPLEʼS REPUBLIC OF CHINA...

Bishop has all the power of government to govern the diocese, without fur-

ther dependence on the Pope and the College of Bishops which is expressed

precisely in the act of communion of the members in the Episcopal College.

The request for “sinization”, provided that it does not imply emptying

the Catholic faith, is not a problem for the Church, since it has been trying

for twenty centuries to do just that on the Five continents: to adapt the ex-

pressions of faith to the cultural context of every place. Assume the social

demands of love for the Fatherland – remember the instruction of the Holy

See on the legality of the rites to the ancestors in Japan for lacking specic

religious sense-,

the respect for the laws and the rulers of society has been

Catholic preaching learned from Jesus and his Apostles. In Countries such as

the United States of America, for example, it is common for the Churches to

display the ag of the country next to the Vatican ag (something, the latter,

more difcult to understand, given the purely instrumental nature of the Vati-

can State regarding the Church of Rome). And for staying in Spain, so many

will also remember that before the liturgical reform after the Second Vatican

Council, when Mass was said in Latin, mention was made on two occasions

of the Head of State: one in which it is currently the Prayer of the Faithful,

and another in the Eucharistic Prayer where, after mentioning the Pope and

the Bishop of the place, he returned to ask for General Franco: they were two

liturgical requirements, it can be afrmed, of the Concordat then in force be-

tween the Holy See and Spain.

Finally, the request for greater “democratization” implicitly made to the

Catholic Church in the “White Paper” of the “State Council Information” pre-

sented in April 2018, also within the requirements of faith, has also margins

of welcome in the law and in the life of the Church. The “White Paper” dem-

onstrates, however, the need to explain better and put into practice, on the

Catholic side, what they are but baptismal demands of co-responsibility and

participation in the life of the Church. The need to promote the exercise of the

rights of the faithful recognized by the canon law and the duty of cooperation

in the various ofces and councils that the law provides, in line with the “syn-

odal” spirit that the Pope is printing on the Church and which has had one of

its greatest exponents in the last reform of the Synod of Bishops of 2018. A

44. Cf. Sacra Congregazione Propaganda Fide (1939/05/26). “Instrucion Pluries instanterque”. AAS

28, 406-409. Cfr. In general, Metzler, J. (2000). “La Congregazione de Propaganda Fide e lo sviluppo delle

Missioni cattoliche (ss. XVIII to XX)”. Yearbook of Church History 9, 145-154.

JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA OCHOA DE CHINCHETRU

certain idea of “democratization”, compatible with the hierarchical structure

that Christ gave to his Church when establishing the Sacred Order, belongs,

and is included in that “synodal” style that has its root in the common condi-

tion of the baptized of all the faithful and, an important legal manifestation, in

the relevant force that the Church possesses the “simple” advisory opinion to

whom it has the responsibility to decide.

5.6. Adaptability and canonical discipline

This idea about the very peculiar canonical value of the “consultative

vote” leads to another more general one about canon law, with which I would

like to conclude these brief notes. Over twenty centuries, the law of the Church

has been adapted to very heterogeneous circumstances, in very different coun-

tries and cultures, while maintaining strict delity to the common core that

constitutes the faith of the Church. Over time, canon law has been forming its

institutions characterized precisely by its high rate of elasticity and adaptabil-

ity to the demands of each place. Sufce it to think that, at the present time,

two Codes of Canon Law, one Latin and one Eastern, coexist, and that the lat-

ter is then developed through “twenty-three” Eastern Sui iuris Churches, each

with its own particular right.

From this, it can be concluded that the ability of the right of the Church

to also nd a response to the specic demands that may arise in the Peopleʼs

Republic of China when harmonizing ecclesial institutions with the cultural

demands of the place, without prevention of departure, accepting them as a

characteristic element of a society in which the Church must also be embodied

by mandate of its Divine Founder.

INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS AN

INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

AbrAhAm skorkA

Both the New Testament and the Qurʼan consider the Hebrew Bible as a

testimony of Godʼs revelation to humanity. In its stories and ethical norms lies

the worldview of Judaism and a great part of the cosmic vision of Christian-

ity and Islam. It is the common source shared by the Abrahamic religions;

therefore, let us begin by analyzing the importance of dialogue in the Hebrew

Bible.

Although in the rst two chapters of Genesis the Creator is described

as verbally addressing the varieties of newly-fashioned creatures (including

human beings), ordering their respective places in nature, in the third chapter

something unprecedented and unique occurs: a dialogue between the Creator

and human beings. It is not the voice of God commanding one of his creatures,

but talking to the man and the woman once they have eaten the forbidden fruit.

It is the rst time that a creature, who has challenged the order imposed by

God, responds to the Almighty.

Dialogue characterizes the whole Hebrew Bible,

is the means that allows

human beings to reach their highest stature. Through dialogue humans can

relate themselves to their Creator, and the Creator to them. The text of Deu-

teronomy

describes one of the punishments with which God will punish the

1. This concept was developed by many thinkers, for instance, Martin Buber. Meir Weiss wrote a

master essay on the issue for an introduction to Buberʼs book Darko Shel Mikra, Bialik Institute, Jerusa-

lem, 5757-1977 (Hebrew).

2. Deuteronomy 31:18.

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ABRAHAM SKORKA

misguided people of Israel, the people chosen to be participants in dialogue

with the divine

. It declares that God will hide the divine face from them; the

people will lose their partner of dialogue par excellence

, as we read:

“

And

I will surely hide My face on that day for all the evil which they shall have

done”.

Elsewhere, the prophet Ezekiel

consoles the discouraged people in their

Babylonian Diaspora by saying that God will not withdraw from them ever

again.

In Isaiah

the same concept is expressed by the prophet, saying that

God will remove the heavenly gaze from the transgressing people even when

they cry out for the divine presence. God abandons the dialogue with the peo-

ple when the people commit the sin of abandoning the dialogue with their

neighbor.

The story of the rst crime committed in human history, when Cain kills

his brother Abel, contains a very signicant element. The Hebrew of Genesis

literally reads, “Cain said to his brother Abel… and when they were in the

eld, Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him”. What did Cain say? The

text does not reveal his words, but goes on to tell of the rst fratricide. Rashi,

the eleventh-century exegete, says that there are many hypotheses raised by

the Rabbinic Sages about this, but the simplest and most compelling explana-

tion is that Cain started an argument that led to violence. The lack of dialogue

led to the crime.

The second story we nd in the Bible about the lack of dialogue and its

consequences refers not to individuals but to a whole society. It is the well-

known story of the Tower of Babel.

Just before the tale of the Tower of Babel, Genesis tells us that the found-

er of Babylon was Nimrod (10: 8-10), the son of Cush, and that he “was a

mighty man… a great hunter before God”. According to the rabbinic tradi-

tion

and also the rst-century writer Josephus, it was Nimrod who urged the

construction of the tower. Rashi opined that Nimrod’s reputation as a hunter

refers to his capability to pursue and ensnare people’s hearts, and the tra-

3. Isaiah 43:10, 12; 44:8.

4. Jeremiah 33:5.

5. Ezekiel 39:29.

6. Similar concept is expressed by Isaiah in 54:8.

7. Isaiah 1:15.

8. Genesis 4:8.

9. Hullin 89a, Pesahim 94b, ʼErubin 53a, ʼAvodah Zarah 53b.

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INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

ditional rabbinical interpretation of the expression “before God”

is that it

means “against God”.

In other words, the rabbinic tradition understood that Nimrod imposed his

will on his people to build a tower that would reach the heavens and thus dele

God. Babel was governed by a tyrant.

Why did God prevent them from building the tower? Certainly, it wasn’t

because God feared human beings and their abilities at constructing skyscrap-

ers! What was disgusting in God’s eyes was the vanity evident in their zeal

for this project, the arrogance of their leader, and the forceful and captivating

speech with which he coerced them. Rabbi ʼOvadia Seforno explains that the

sin of the people of Babylonia was to try to impose one leader, one religion,

and one language over the whole of humanity; this would never allow the

development of a person such as Abraham, who would question the beliefs of

his contemporaries. Multifaceted language and the many languages in all their

varieties, the rabbis thought, are a requirement for the maturation of human

spirituality.

In the nineteenth century, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, in his bibli-

cal commentary Haʼamek Davar,

explains that having one language was not

the sin of the people of Babylonia. Their sin was to oppress any person who

thought in a different way. His explanation is based on the concepts developed

in the Midrash:

No one from the generation of the Flood survived because they were steeped

in robbery… but those who loved each other remained, as it is written: “and all

the earth had one language”. Therefore, a remnant of them was left. Rabbi (Ye-

hudah HaNasi) says: Great is peace, for even if Israel were to practice idolatry

but maintained peace among themselves, it is as if the Holy One, blessed be He,

should say: “I have no dominion over them because there is peace among them

… but when they argued [then they will be accused and punished]. […] From this

you learn how great is peace and the avoidance of contention.

In his interpretation, Rabbi Berlin posited that intolerance had prevailed

in Babylonia. Any people who thought in a different way than the prescribed

norms were persecuted. The sages of the Midrash similarly understood how

10. Genesis 10:9.

11. Targum Yonatan, Rashi, etc. ad locum.

12. https://www.sefaria.org/Haamek_Davar_on_Genesis.11.9?lang=bi.

13. Bereshit Rabbah 38:6.

102

ABRAHAM SKORKA

ancient Babylonian society functioned. They imagined that Nimrod had perse-

cuted Abraham and tried to kill him for having different thoughts than society

dictated.

In addition, Rabbi Yehuda used a wordplay to explain Abrahamʼs desig-

nation in Genesis 14:13 as ha-Ivri (“the Hebrew”). Yehuda said that Abraham

stood alone on one side (‘ever) and the whole of humanity stood on the other.

Abraham was the one who was different in that society.

It is important to stress Rabbi Yehudahʼs saying about the greatness of

peace: that God would not interfere even with idol worship if peace is pur-

sued. But such a reality is impossible. Idolatry, as seen in Nazism, Fascism, or

Stalinism, is incompatible with peace. Rabbi Yehudaʼs saying is an ὀξύμωρον

(oxymoron), a contradiction intended to stress the importance of peace.

The speech of demagogues like Nimrod is not false or true. It operates

in an articial reality of their own creation. Hitler believed in the supremacy

of the Aryan race and in the noxiousness of the Jews. These were axiomatic

“truths” for him, truths that were not debatable. In Nazi Germany there was

only one speech, any variant was considered heretical and its adherents se-

verely punished. At such points authoritarian regimes come to resemble reli-

gious creeds conceived in fanatical extremes, and thus become despotic.

Tyrannical declarations are framed in black-and-white binary terms that

divide the societies being addressed. The only options that despots can imag-

ine for their people are to be either for or against them. They do not accept the

possibility that there could be people who dispute their hold on power because

they hold an alternative, possibly better, vision. Indeed, an alternative vision

cannot even be conceived. In such circumstances, public civic discourse be-

comes highly polarized and uncompromising.

The punishment that God imposed on the inhabitants of Babylon, rather

than a penalty, was a rectication of a fault in their society. God confused the

languages of the peoples, one could no longer understand the other. Nimrod

lost the most powerful weapon he had to maintain his power: unitary language.

In the book of Zephaniah

the prophet envisions a future in which God

will pour a new language into the peoples, a clear, pure language. The sages

14. Midrash Rabbah 38:13.

15. Midrash Rabbah 41:13.

16. Zephaniah 3: 9.

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INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

of the Midrash

relate this verse to the division of languages in Babel. At the

time of the redemption of humanity people will understand each other, a lan-

guage of purity will relate all people to everyone. The multifaceted language

of dialogue will characterize a time of redemption.

Dialogue should be understood as an attitude rather than only an exchange

of words. It refers to the empathy that two people give each other when in-

teracting. Words are mere instruments to manifest this attitude. Silences and

gestures are an essential part of the dialogical attitude. Words, silences and

gestures can build up life when used in a positive way, building bridges among

people or can cause death and destruction when used to divided or exclude

people.

In the tractate ʼArakhin

of the Babylonian Talmud, we read the teach-

ing of Rabbi Hama ben Rabbi Hanina about the meaning of Proverbs 18:21:

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue”. He explains that it means that

just as you can kill with the hand so you can also kill with your tongue. Jer-

emiah

said: “Their tongue is a deadly arrow”.

On the other hand, it is also possible to heal spiritual wounds through

words and to transform an enemy into a friend.

It is possible to learn from Godʼs behaviour about the importance of the

correct use of words and gestures in building relationships. Through words

God created the world, as it is written:

“By the word of God heavens made

and their entire host by the breath of His mouth” and:

“For He spoke, and it

was done; He commanded, and it stood rm”.

God has, according to the description of the Creation in Genesis or the

harmony of Nature depicted in Psalms 104, a relationship with all creatures,

but with human beings the relationship is special. The only creatures that were

created uniquely were Adam and Eve (cf. Genesis 1:27; 5:2). They were the

only ones with whom God entered into dialogue.

After the eating of the forbidden fruit and after Cain killed his brother

Abel, God did not abandon them to their solitude. He asked Adam: Where

are you? And asked Cain: Where is Abel your brother? A reality in which the

17. Tanhuma, Parshat Noah, Siman 19.

18. ʼArakhin 15 b.

19. Jeremiah 9:8.

20. Psalms 33:6.

21. Psalms 33:9.

104

ABRAHAM SKORKA

dialogue between Heaven and Earth is disrupted is inconceivable in the eyes

of God.

The aim of real dialogue is to know the other and to be known by the

other. The demonization of the other requires ignorance and prejudice. The

verb “to know” is used in the Bible on many occasions as a synonym of love,

and refers to the highest expression of love i.e. the love between husband and

wife.

In Hosea 2: 21-22 it refers to the love of God.

The dialogue with God can only be made through a dialogical attitude

towards the people who are all around us. Ever since the generation of Hosea,

Micah, Amos and Isaiah, the Bible has emphasized that only in a reality built

on the values of social justice, mutual respect, mercy and solidarity can God

reveal Himself to human beings. All the fanatics, all those who pretend to pay

homage to God by killing others, are acting against the biblical God, and if

they are invoking God’s Name, they are blaspheming and distorting God’s

revealed message.

When a dialogue of words cannot be established, then bullets and bombs

take its place. The only means that was conferred upon human beings to mani-

fest through their actions the spark of the Creator inside them is through dia-

logue.

The fragmentation we are seeing around us today, locally as well interna-

tionally, is a symptom of the loneliness that characterizes social life in many

places. The dissolution of the family, the insane pursuit of material goods and

power, the sensation of having almighty power are all alienating individuals

from the spiritual dimensions of their reality. Kabbalah and esoteric or mysti-

cal things become fads for the acquisition of power, rather than ways to come

to know God.

1. the Jewish-ChristiAn diAloGue

When humankind came to its senses after the Second World War, it re-

alized the magnitude of the destruction it had wreaked. It recognized that

human beings could become monsters when the norms of civilization break

down. Answers were urgently demanded in order to nd a meaning for human

22. Genesis 4:17, 25; 1 Samuel 1:19, etc.

23. See also: Jeremiah 9:23.

105

INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

existence. The singularity of the Jewish sufferings perpetrated by Nazis and

enabled by the indifference of many people was a major issue in the agenda of

all those who rescued sparks of spirituality in the midst of the horrible dark-

ness of death and madness. The uniqueness of the Shoah was described by

Pope Francis in the following terms:

The Shoah is genocide, like the others from the twentieth century, but it has

a distinctive feature. I would not like to say that this is of primary relevance and

the others secondary, but there is a distinctive feature, an idolatrous construc-

tion against the Jewish people. The pure race, the superior beings, they are idols

for the foundation upon which Nazism was built. It is not only a geopolitical

problem; it is also a cultural-religious issue. Each Jew that they killed was a slap

in the face to the living God in the name of idols. A short time ago, I read –and

it was difcult because it gave me nausea– a book with a foreword by Primo

Levi that is called Commandant of Auschwitz, by Rudolf Höss, a coordinator of

these extermination camps who wrote his memoirs while in prison. The coldness

with which this man describes what happened there demonstrates the diabolical

nature of the matter. The Devil presented himself in idols that tranquilized the

human conscience.

Élisabeth Roudinesco has expressed the uniqueness of the Shoah in a

similar way:

As we know, the Nazis did not seek simply to destroy the Jews residing

within a particular set of borders. They wanted to eliminate all the Jews, irrespec-

tive of any geographical limit and any real presence of the victims. What the

“Final Solution” aimed at was not merely the destruction of the very origins of

the Jew, genealogically dened –ancestors, grandparents, parents, children, chil-

dren yet to be born, Jews already dead and buried– but also the destruction of the

generic Jew, outside any territory, with his or her territory, culture, and religion:

a vertical extermination starting with the rst parent, a horizontal extermination

started with the scattered people (the diaspora). And in the Jewish genos now the

paradigm of the evil race, was included everything that was not the Aryan genos.

In this way, the Nazis aimed to replace the Chosen People by fabricating, in the

Aryan myth, a perverted gure of the doctrine of chosenness: “Nazism”, wrote

Pierre Vidal-Naquet in 1987, is a perversa imitatio, a perverse imitation of the

24. Pope Francis (Bergoglio, J. M.)-Skorka, A. (2013). On Heaven and Earth. USA: Random House,

178; English version of: Bergoglio, J. M.-Skorka, A. (2010). Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra. Argentina: Su-

damericana S. A., Random House Mondadori.

106

ABRAHAM SKORKA

image of the Jewish people. What was needed was to break with Abraham, and

thus with Jesus, and seek another lineage for oneself among the “Aryans”.

Later on, she afrms:

The caesura, which makes of Auschwitz a unique event, is linked to the fact

that the extermination of the Jews served no other aim than that of satisfying

a perverse, pathological, indeed paranoid hatred of the Jew insofar as he was

excluded from the human world.

The Shoah was perpetrated in Europe, the core of Christian culture. This

fact generated a crisis of conscience for the many people who treasured the

authentic spirituality of Christianity. They tried before the Shoah to create a

relationship between Jews and Christians.

Several Christian thinkers like Jacques Maritain, who desperately warned

the European countries before the outbreak of the Second World War about

the dramatically dangerous situation of the Jews living in their midst

, or the

members of the Opus sacerdotale Amici Israel,

among others, deeply under-

stood the need for change in in the relationship between Jews and Christians.

Their efforts couldnʼt counteract the prevailing hatred. It was too late.

The Shoah is among the lowest points of barbarism in human history

and denotes the bankruptcy of European-Christian culture. Humanity at large

needed (and continues to need) to respond adequately to a terrible challenge:

to remember the Shoah by building a reality in which another Shoah could

never again happen in human history.

Immediately after the war, people like Jules Isaac, Maritain, and all those

who assisted and supported the Seelisberg Conference,

understood deeply the

urgent necessity of a turning point in Jewish-Catholic relations. Isaac went on

to meet on June 13, 1960 with Pope John XXIII, asking him to include the issue

of Jewish-Catholic relations as a topic for the Second Vatican Council to con-

25. Roudinesco, É. (2013). Revisiting the Jewish Question. USA: Polity Press, 96-97; English ver-

sion of: Roudinesco, É. (2009). Retour sur la question juive. Paris: Albin Michel.

26. Les Juifs parmi les nations: conférence faite par M. Jacques Maritain sous les auspices des

“Groupes Chrétienté” au Thétre des Ambassadeurs, le samedi 5 février 1938. Paris, Les Éditions du Cerf

(29, boulevard de La Tour-Maubourg), 1938. (31 aot.) The conference was translated into Spanish by Edi-

ciones Sur in Buenos Aires, and published as a booklet on July 4

1938.

27. Wolf, H. (2010). Pope and Devil: The Vatican’s Archives and the Third Reich. Translated by

Kenneth Kronenberg. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

28. Rutishauser, C. (2007). “The 1947 Seelisberg Conference: The Foundation of the Jewish-Chris-

tian Dialogue, Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations”. Issue 2, 34-53.

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INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

sider. (John had announced the convening of a worldwide council on January

25, 1959.) John XXIII, who during the Second World War had saved thousands

of Jews from the Nazis’ murderous hands,

was deeply moved by Isaacʼs mes-

sage, and not long afterward appointed Cardinal Bea to prepare a statement for

the formation of a new way forward in Jewish-Catholic relations.

From the ashes of the Holocaust, as a brand plucked from re, the dia-

logical dimension was rescued. The Council document Nostra aetate was the

cornerstone on which developed a dialogue that, through the deeds of the last

three popes, increased to levels never attained before in the history of Judaism

and Christianity.

Many priests throughout the world, including in Latin-America, identi-

ed with and were inspired by the spirit of the documents of the Council.

Since then, the interfaith dialogue whose buds had already appeared before the

Second Vatican Council, developed signicantly and bore important fruits.

The Popes who succeeded John XXIII increasingly intensied the Catholic

Church’s commitment to a genuine dialogue that would turn the estrangement

that separated Christians and Jews into a genuine friendship.

Since Nostra aetate much has been done in the interfaith dialogue, espe-

cially between Jews and Catholics and the other Christian denominations. This

declaration stimulated the writings of a series of other relevant documents from

the Catholic Church

and several very important responses from Jews.

Looking around today, after more than half a century since the approval

of Nostra aetate, I ask myself about the next step that must be done in the

interfaith dialogue at large. Two ideas come to my mind. First, theological

29. Humanitarian actions of Monsignor Angelo Roncalli. The International Raoul Wallenburg Foun-

dation. Raoulwallenberg.net. (Retrieved: 2014/04/28).

30. Connelly, J. (2012). From Enemy to Brothers. USA: Harvard University Press, 240-241.

31. Skorka, A. (2014). “El Diálogo Judeo-Católico a Cincuenta Años de Nostra aetate. Una per-

spectiva Latinoamericana”. El Olivo, vol. 38, n. 79-80, 33-44; Stofenmacher, A.-Skorka, A. (ed.). (2016).

El Concilio Vaticano II y los Judíos. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano ʼM.

T. Meyerʼ.

32. Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra aetate, n. 4

(1974); Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman

Catholic Church (1985); Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel (1993); We

remember: A Reection on the Shoah (1998); The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Chris-

tian Bible (2001); The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable (2015).

33. Dabru Emet (2000); To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between

Jews and Christians (2015); Between Jerusalem and Rome (2017).

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ABRAHAM SKORKA

dialogue with all its implications must be pursued. Second, the dialogue must

address the urgent issues that humanity now faces.

The theological dialogue is relevant for Jews and more immediately for

Christians who are trying –after Nostra Aetate– to rebuild a theology in which

both Jews and Christians live in covenant with God and Jews as well as Chris-

tians have important missions in the repairing of the world and the paving of

a way of redemption.

The theme of dialogue appears constantly in relevant Vatican documents

since the Second Vatican Council. In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii

gaudium, Pope Francis devotes an entire section (IV, 238-258) to the different

aspects of the theme of dialogue. “Social dialogue as a contribution to peace”,

“Dialogue between faith, reason and science”, “Ecumenical dialogue”, “Rela-

tions with Judaism” (247-249), “Interreligious dialogue and Social dialogue

in a context of religious freedom”.

A special chapter in Francis’ text is devoted to relations with Judaism. The

key word in this chapter is “relations”, stressing that the dialogue with the Jew-

ish people has for Catholics a special dimension. The same concept appears in

the document: “The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable (Rom 11:29):

A reection on theological questions pertaining to Catholic-Jewish relations on

the occasion of the 50

anniversary of Nostra aetate (n. 4)”, prepared by the

Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (December 10

2015). Its

signatories (Cardinal Kurt Koch, President, Most Reverend Brian Farrell, Vice-

President, and Reverend Norbert Hofmann, Secretary) afrm:

15. Dialogue between Jews and Christians then can only be termed “interre-

ligious dialogue” by analogy, that is, dialogue between two intrinsically separate

and different religions. It is not the case that two fundamentally diverse religions

confront one another after having developed independently of one another or

without mutual inuence. The soil that nurtured both Jews and Christians is the

Judaism of Jesus’ time, which not only brought forth Christianity but also, after

the destruction of the temple in the year 70, post-biblical rabbinical Judaism

which then had to do without the sacricial cult and, in its further development,

had to depend exclusively on prayer and the interpretation of both written and

oral divine revelation. Thus, Jews and Christians have the same mother and can

be seen, as it were, as two siblings who –as is the normal course of events for

siblings– have developed in different directions.

34. Cunningham, P. A.-Sievers, J.-Boys, M. C.-Henrix, H. H. & Svartvik, J. (2011) (ed.). Christ

Jesus and the Jewish People Today. Roma: Gregorian and Biblical Press.

109

INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

Christians know that the reconguring of their theology requires ongo-

ing dialogue with Jews, if only because Jesus and the earliest apostles and the

fundamental roots of Christianity were all Jewish.

In a different way, Jews experienced over the centuries mostly conictual

relations with Christians. Nonetheless, there were Jews who recognized they

shared many spiritual values in common with Christians. Israel Jacob Yuval

describes chapters of this dramatic and inimical story in his essay: Two Na-

tions in Your Womb. University of California Press (2008), which is only one

example among many of Jewish studies on the topic of relations with Chris-

tians that have multiplied during the twentieth century.

2. the diAloGue with the muslim world

The further step that must be undertaken by Jews and Christians in their

dialogical path is to interact with representatives of the Muslim world, creat-

ing a multiple dialogue among the Abrahamic religions.

The world has impressively shrunk in the last decades, and different waves

of migration have taken place during that time. Cosmopolitanism character-

izes many places in the West, but at the same time xenophobic provincialism

is expressed by new movements and parties with discriminatory ideologies.

In 1993, Samuel Phillips Huntington published in Foreign Affairs his fa-

mous article: “The Clash of Civilizations?”. He posed in his very clarifying

essay one the most dramatic questions facing the world. It has to be remarked

that whether or not one agrees with his theses, the core of his article reects

a reality that characterizes our time. The question asked by Huntington is ex-

tremely pointed and no one can be certain that a negative answer to it is correct.

When we speak about interfaith dialogue nowadays, taking into account

the importance of religious factors in current conicts, as Huntington urged

in his article and his subsequent book, it is clear that we are referring to an

absolutely crucial element in the achievement of peace. As described by Gilles

Kepel in La revanche de Dieu, Le Seuil, Paris, 1991, the Abrahamic religions

experienced a resurgence of fanatic positions since the half of the seventies of

the last century.

35. Stahl, N. (2012). Other and Brother: Jesus in the 20th-Century Jewish Literary Landscape.

USA: Oxford University Press.

110

ABRAHAM SKORKA

The Islamic world, in all its different subdivisions, has to have a very

important role in the dialogue.

Genesis 25:9 portrays Isaac and Ishmael coming together to bury their

father, Abraham. According to the biblical text they did not live together; they

were different kinds of persons who suffered painful conicts early in their

lives, and one settled apart from the other. But in the sorrowful moment of the

death of their father their recognized their brotherhood. They came together to

bury their father Abraham.

The same occurred in an even more dramatic way with Jacob and Esau.

After terrible clashes between them, even after their reconciliation they could

not live together. No dialogues are mentioned in the Bible between them after

they made their peace, and no other details have been given in the text. Only

for the burial of Isaac, did Jacob and Esau meet again.

When a conict arose between the shepherds of Abraham and those of

Lot, separation was also the solution our ancestors found in order to avoid

clashes and ghts.

But separation is no longer a solution for the resolution of

the conicts today. There is no more room as it was in the past, neither geo-

graphical nor cultural space. The interaction of peoples from different nations,

cultures, civilizations, religions and values happens to a degree that has never

been seen before. Very rapidly, the world is starting to resemble a small town.

The dramatic changes that took place within humanity in the last cen-

tury demand courageous responses from the leaders of all religions. Scientic

and technological advancements, population shifts, sexual revolutions, etc.

require answers based upon the reinterpretation of sacred texts. Rabbi Mena-

chem Mendel of Kotzk, one who devoted his life to know the truth of exist-

ence, used to teach that “everything in the world can be imitated, except truth,

for truth that is imitated is no longer truth”. The teachings of the past can only

illuminate part of the present problems, the intellect and spirituality of the

leaders must add the rest of the necessary light. Interreligious dialogue plays

an urgent role in the inner renewal of beliefs and faiths.

Huntingtonʼs question is still challenging us today. Are we stepping into

a world of conict or will the different civilizations be able to develop the

capacity to restrict destructive human passions and so reduce violence?

36. Genesis 35: 29.

37. Genesis 13: 7-12.

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INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

Religious leaders have enormous responsibility in the building of such

guideposts. This is not and could not be the task of one single religion. It is the

task of all of them. And the great tool that God has put into human hands in

this undertaking is the capability to dialogue, to connect us with our neighbor,

with each other, and with God.

This capability was used lately by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of

Al-Azhar University in El Cairo, Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, who is the highest aca-

demic authority of the Sunnis. They organized two Global Peace conferences,

the rst in Cairo on April 27-28, 2017 and the second in Abu Dhabi on Febru-

ary 2-3, 2019. I was invited to both gatherings. At the recent conference in

Abu Dhabi, Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb

signed a “Declaration on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living To-

gether”. The text is a strong call for sanity and peace in our present reality of

hate and fanaticism. Among other things, it says:

[W]e resolutely declare that religions must never incite war, hateful atti-

tudes, hostility and extremism, nor must they incite violence or the shedding of

blood. These tragic realities are the consequence of a deviation from religious

teachings. They result from a political manipulation of religions and from in-

terpretations made by religious groups who, in the course of history, have taken

advantage of the power of religious sentiment in the hearts of men and women

in order to make them act in a way that has nothing to do with the truth of

religion. This is done for the purpose of achieving objectives that are political,

economic, worldly and short-sighted. We thus call upon all concerned to stop

using religions to incite hatred, violence, extremism and blind fanaticism, and to

refrain from using the name of God to justify acts of murder, exile, terrorism and

oppression. We ask this on the basis of our common belief in God who did not

create men and women to be killed or to ght one another, nor to be tortured or

humiliated in their lives and circumstances. God, the Almighty, has no need to be

defended by anyone and does not want His name to be used to terrorize people.

Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb is the head of the Sunni branch of Islam;

90% of the world’s Muslims belong to this denomination. There is little need

for much explanation of the importance of this document. That religion cannot

be used as a tool for violence and hate is one of the central points of the state-

ment. Now it depends on the respective commitments by the signatories of the

document to transform its spirit into reality. It is clear that the mere existence

38. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2019/02/04/190204f.html

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ABRAHAM SKORKA

of this declaration will not per se suddenly bring about a world of peace, but

it will serve for the future as a benchmark to show the way ahead and the goal

to achieve.

The biblical conception of human history could be seen as Godʼs inten-

tion of creating a humanity in which each individual sees in his neighbor a

brother and sister. The uniqueness of the creation of human beings in the He-

brew Bible reects, according to the Talmudic Sages, the uniqueness of each

individual and the brotherhood of all humanity since all humans have parents

in common.

God created human beings with the power to choose between good and

bad. Humanity bad choices have divided families and peoples, produced wars

and conicts, hate and destruction. The great challenge for humanity is to

choose the good, the way that leads to the fullness of life, as Moses urged the

people of Israel in his last discourse to them.

Isaiah

and Micah

foresaw a time in which all people will put aside the

use of guns, war and violence. These possible behaviors will be erased from

human reality altogether and each people will worship according to their re-

spective beliefs the One God who has sanctied human life. On that day, said

Zechariah,

God will be one and God’s Name one, spirituality will reign over

coarse materialism and egocentrism and each person will honour creation and

its Creator.

Then it will come to pass the words of Zephaniah

(3:9): “For then I will

make the peoples pure of speech, so that they all invoke the Lord by name and

serve God with one accord”. It is the language that human beings have to learn

through sincere dialogue with God and neighbor, thus following the way that

the Creator offered to humanity to walk since the very moment of its creation.

It is the language of dialogue that begun when God asked Adam the eternal

question that continues asking us: Where are you? (Genesis 3:9).

39. Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5.

40. Deuteronomy 30:19.

41. Isaiah 2:1-4.

42. Micah 4:1-5.

43. Zechariah14:9.

44. Zephaniah 3:9 .

45. https://www.lahak.org/templates/lahak/article_cdo/aid/2993635:

 ! ! 

113

CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE PATH OF

INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

mohAmmed Abu-nimer

1. introduCtion

“When I met someone from the other side, I discovered how little I knew

about their faith, nation, and culture”.

I have heard this exact statement or a variation from hundreds of coura-

geous participants in dialogue encounters. For a person to admit to this level

of ignorance of the other, he or she must have experienced a powerful encoun-

ter, one so powerful that it made him/her re-examine deep seated assumptions

and misperceptions of the other side and of his/herself.

The encounter is a platform that allows participants to look at themselves

through the other. A dialogical encounter is contrary to what many people

think or describe, it is not meeting the other. It is meeting oneself and con-

fronting his/her own negative images and biases of the other.

In the encounter we need the other to show us what we think and feel. The

other becomes the mirror in which we examine our own feelings and ask risky

questions that otherwise we will not ask if we are not forced to meet the other

in a trusting environment.

When an Israeli participant dialogically meets a Palestinian refugee who

lives few miles away from his hometown, he/she is forced to respond to the

question: why did I not know about their plight? Similarly, the Palestinian

114

MOHAMMED ABU-NIMER

participant will have to answer the forbidden question: why did I not know

about their fears and needs?

A dialogical encounter contains certain dynamics that facilitate a painful

process of self-discovery which has been prohibited or blocked (intention-

ally or unintentionally) by social agencies. The blocking of such a process is

certainly done intentionally by most socialization agencies. Society with all

its agencies have conspired against its members to prohibit and prevent eve-

ryone, especially children from dialogically meeting the other. Thus, the skills

of posing self-critical questions regarding the other (enemy, different religion

or cultures) are often lacking. In fact, it can be highly dangerous to publicly

speak about the perspective of the other faith groups or their truth, especially

when there is an ongoing conict with such groups. Being accused of betrayal

or treason is just one of the potential consequences that a daring person can

face from his/her own community (or even family). For example, if an Azeri

citizen speaks about the Armenian perspective on the Nagorno-Karabakh War

and subsequent clashes, it can cost him/her his own career if not citizenship.

But what do we mean by a culture of encounter and a dialogical encoun-

ter? What is the role of religious agencies in facilitating a culture of encoun-

ter? What are the challenges that obstruct genuine dialogical encounters?

2. FAith And diAloGiCAl enCounters

Most, if not all, religions claim certain exclusive truths. The membership

in each faith has requirements, duties, and privileges. The degree of critical

self-examination varies between and even within members of the same faith

group. Theological interpretations have been constructed in a way that al-

low for the possibility of dialogical encounters with other faiths. However,

such hermeneutics is neither necessarily mainstreamed nor dominant in most

faith groups. On the contrary, those who believe and promote interfaith and/

or intra-faith dialogue often nd themselves in the margins of their own faith

group. They face many challenges from within.

The engagement in a dialogical encounter process requires that the fol-

lower accept certain assumptions, of which some might contradict his/her

own faith group’s theological interpretations. The conditions for an effective

1. See Gerrard, M.-Abu-Nimer, M. (2018). Making Peace with Faith.

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CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE PATH OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

dialogical encounter include six key elements briey discussed in the follow-

ing section.

First, it is critical to have trust in other faith group members. Trust is nec-

essary to build a relationship based on honesty and transparency. In conict

areas, especially in contexts in which religious identities have been manipu-

lated by the various sides to justify violence in the name of protecting one’s

own faith groups, it becomes highly challenging to take the risk of trusting

members of the other faith. In a context like Israeli Palestinian conict, mis-

perceptions and stereotypes are deeply ingrained in the collective mind and

psyche of the three Abrahamic groups. Thus, during the early stage of the rst

encounter, participants often admit to the following negative images:

“Muslims cannot be trusted, they always side with each other in situations

of violence; that is what their faith tells them. Don’t you know about their broth-

erhood pact?”. “Jews will always stick together no matter what you do with

them”. “Christians only buy from each other. They cannot be trusted”. Such

statements are not exclusive to this region; for example, in Sri Lanka, Buddhist,

Muslim, Hinds, and Christian participants exchange such views when they met

for the rst time.

The second dialogical encounter principle is rooted in the notion that we

are all here in the encounter for the purpose of learning about each other.

Within most faith groups, learning about other religions is done through one’s

own clergy and religious agencies. In fact, there is whole systems or structures

within faith groups that have evolved to specialize in teaching children and

adults about the other faith groups and their religions. In Islam, for example,

Da’awa (spreading the word of Allah), which consists of comparing Islamic

teaching to the teachings of other faith groups, is very central in persuad-

ing the individual to adopt the path of Islam. Similarly, in the Evangelical

missionary tradition has a practice that compares the protestant teachings to

Catholic teachings, or other faiths like Judaism, Buddhism etc.

Even faith

groups that do not adopt conversion as part of their belief systems, the reli-

gious institutions provide their followers with answers to the question of who

other faith groups are and why “ours” is better or the best path.

2. See article by Omar Rashid and Dudley in: Augsburger, D.-Abu-Nimer, M. (2006). Muslim-Chris-

tian Conversations for Peace. Fuller Theological Seminary and Salam Institute.

116

MOHAMMED ABU-NIMER

Thus, adopting the principle of being able to learn from others about

one’s own faith or others’ faith(s) is a highly challenging practice. The dialogi-

cal encounter participant nds himself/herself facing the following dilemmas:

how do I deal with the information that was given to me about the other faith

groups by my religious authorities? Who is right and who is wrong when the

information is contradictory? Who has deceived me?

Once the principle of learning through the encounter is adopted by the

religious participant, the pressure of defending one’s own story as was told

by the rabbi, imam, priest or Buddhist monk is relieved. The participants be-

gin exploring the possibilities of new sources of information about their own

faiths and other faith groups.

The third dialogue principle is that the dialogical encounter has to take

place through proper communication channels and a venue that allows the

religious and cultural meanings and codes to be interpreted accurately. This

means that Muslim participants have to fully listen and be able to articulate

clearly their own perceptions of their Islamic spiritual and religious identity.

In most cases, participants arrive to the encounter with a default communica-

tion system that is based on inter– and intra-religious defensive and offensive

strategies of interaction.

In the encounter when a Christian participant describe his perception

of Islam and Muslims, in many occasions the Muslim participants imme-

diately assume the role of traditional teacher who needs to “set the record

straight” and make sure that the other speaker knows the “correct version of

Islam”. This dynamic repeats itself when the Muslim describe Christianity

or Judaism. Due to the negative historical collective memory and current

interreligious conict dynamics, the need to defend is deeply installed in the

followers’ mind. Thus, open communication is rarely deployed or utilized

in the encounter. Facilitators are certainly needed, at least in the initial en-

counters to ensure that the old and default negative communication patterns

are broken and at least partially replaced with newly and jointly agreed upon

communication methods.

The new form of interreligious listening allows the Jewish participant to

verify if the message stated by the Muslim indeed meant what she/he under-

stood. This verication process takes place through the encounter by posing

questions such as: when you said… did you mean to this…? Or this is what I

understood from your message… is this what you meant to say?

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CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE PATH OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Although such statements or open questions seem simple yet, they are

very effective tools to prevent the person from blindly using his/her own reli-

gious framework to understand and communicate with the other.

Symmetry is another principle that ensures the effectiveness of the dialog-

ical encounter. In outside reality, individuals or members of a faith group are

rarely in a symmetric relationship with each other. The fact that they belong

to different ethnic or national groups have placed them in asymmetrical power

relations. For example, Sri Lankan Muslim clergy, as member of minority in a

Buddhist dominant majority state, will always feel under represented and less

inuential than their counterpart, the Buddhist clergy. Similarly, a member

of the Christian clergy in the Egyptian context will experience same feeling

of asymmetrical relations when he/she is in the presence of member of the

Muslim clergy from al Azhar who belongs to the dominant Muslim majority.

Such asymmetrical relations are reected in daily social and cultural encoun-

ters. However, the dialogical encounter is based on the assumption that all

members of the group are equal and have the same rights for expression and

action. No priority is given to member of the dominant faith group in society,

on the contrary often facilitators compensate for the external asymmetrical

relations by empowering the faith minority groups throughout the encounter.

For example, one such way of empowerment would be providing the minority

faith group with their own independent and safe space to practice their own

rituals and develop their own separate path for engagement with the dominant

faith group.

Symmetry is crucial for the dialogical encounter to affect issues of justice

and grievances. Faith groups will not feel comfortable if the encounter design

reproduces the outside reality within the encounter and gives privileges to

the dominant faith groups. For example, in the Philippines during an inter-

faith encounter between Christians and Muslims, the location and venue of

the meeting was often decided or determined by the Christian groups and their

agencies who organized the encounter. The site in many cases was a Church

or related property. A number of Muslim participants expressed frustration

and demanded to change the venue or to at least have a meeting within Mus-

lim territories. The language of the encounter is another manifestation of the

asymmetric relationship, when Arabic speaking participants in an Arab-Eu-

ropean encounter were told that they could not speak their own language and

no was translation available, English was utilized as a common language for

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MOHAMMED ABU-NIMER

the encounter. Providing such participants with the opportunity and space to

feel equal to their counterparts is essential in nurturing the dignity and respect

in the dialogical encounter. Unfortunately, many European-Muslim encoun-

ters suffer from this limitation since the European culture of communication

and interaction is dominant and is frequently considered the “proper” way

to conduct the encounter. Conversely participants from Muslim societies are

expected to adjust and abide by the rules of the dominant majority.

Obviously, the dialogical encounter cannot fully escape the interreligious

asymmetric relations in the outside reality. As stated by Abu-Nimer and La-

zarus in capturing the asymmetric relations in the Israeli Palestinian Conict

and its implication on the encounter:

The “toll” of the conict is not equally distributed among the participants,

nor is it only psychological. Israelis and Palestinians live in a reality of asym-

metric power relations, in which most Israelis are born with access to rights,

resources, and opportunities that are denied or severely curtailed for most Pales-

tinians. Many Palestinian participants struggle during encounters with what they

experience as over-psychologizing the relationship, or blurring the differences

between Israeli life in a society enforcing an occupation and Palestinian life

tinder occupation. Psychosocial approaches encourage participants to articulate

and recognize their separate and unequal social realities. Such recognition is an

essential step for participants on both sides to understand each other’s distinct,

but equally real and equally human, fears and needs, the different ways in which

both groups perpetuate the dynamics of conict, and the different ways in which

people on each side pay “the price of no peace” (Abu-Nimer and Lazarus: 2007).

However, the organizers of the encounter can be intentional in shifting

the dynamics and constructing an environment that allows the minority faith

groups to feel more empowered and the dominant majority to experience a

dynamic of genuine equality.

When the participant from the dominant faith group experiences and

accepts the possibility for equal and symmetrical relations, their theologi-

cal framework changes in a way to allow them to hold on to the newly con-

structed view of the other. One such example occurred when Sunni Muslim

participants from a dominant faith group in a second dialogical encounter in

3. See Abu-Nimer, M.-Ned. L. (2007). The Peacebuilder’s Paradox and the Dynamics of Dialogue:

Psychosocial Approaches to Israeli/Palestinian Peacebuilding. In: Kuriansky, J. (ed.). Beyond Bullets and

Bombs: Grassroots Peacebuilding between Palestinians and Israelis. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

119

CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE PATH OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Pakistan began articulating Qura’nic and hadith sayings to support their newly

constructed view of the Shia and other minority groups who attended a dia-

logical encounter.

Organizers of interfaith encounters have the opportunity to construct and

design their dialogical encounters with great deal of symmetrical conditions

within each encounter’s design and process. A decision to do so will affect

their choices regarding the type of participants they select, venue and location

of the encounter, the language to be utilized, food to be served, games to be

played, projects to be initiated, etc. The fact that many religious institutions

avoid such symmetry in encounters often reects the level of commitment to

genuine dialogical encounters versus symbolic or ritualistic encounters that

replicate the dominant subordinate interreligious dynamics existing in reality.

The fourth principle for dialogical encounters is related to the ability of

the participants to take risk through the interreligious dialogue. Taking risk

is an important step for each participant in the dialogical encounter. If the

participant does not take any risk in the interaction with other faith groups he/

she is not able to learn beyond his/her comfort zone. Educational and learn-

ing theories have already empirically established the principle that the zone

of learning expands when the learner dares to ask questions and takes risk in

pursuing new information from other sources.

Thus, for a Muslim participant to learn more about Christianity in a dia-

logical encounter he /she needs to dare to ask about the theological grounding

of the Holy trinity and being able to compare and contrast with the his/her

own Islamic theological interpretations. Similarly, the Christian needs to ask

daring questions about the notion of Jihad in Islam and be able to listen to

the Muslim participants in articulating the spiritual and religious meaning of

Jihad in his/her own faith. In dialogical encounters taking risks is not only re-

lated to raising challenging theological questions or critically examining your

own faith interpretation and narrative, but it can extend to posing questions

about the religious identity and its boundaries as it is manifested in reality. For

example, a Christian European participant in a dialogical encounter with Mus-

lim and Jewish Europeans can explore ways in which the European Christian

institutions culture have beneted his/her life in comparison to other religious

minorities in European context. Exploring these privileges related to religious

identity can be risky for such participants. The realization that as a Christian

in a European context you do not have to worry about the legitimacy or acces-

sibility to your rituals might lead to new awareness or need for action.

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MOHAMMED ABU-NIMER

In many encounters that do not encourage risk taking through the process

of the dialogue. Participants’ tend to remain in their comfort zone and recycle

the same information and knowledge or awareness that they have had prior

to the encounter. A genuine dialogical encounter will not only be focused on

ritualistic presentation of the faith groups, but goes beyond that. It allows

participants to pose questions that otherwise are not possible to raise in day-

to-day life or interreligious interaction.

A fth principle for dialogical encounter is the ability to engage with the

other and with one’s own faith group members and discuss difcult theologi-

cal and non-theological issues. In many encounters, participants and organiz-

ers intentionally or unintentionally avoid dealing with difcult issues because

of their fear to experience discomfort and pain. Also, others argue that it is bet-

ter to focus on the commonalities and avoid differences. In dialogue avoiding

the difcult issues reduces the possibilities of building a deep and sustained

trustful relationship. If such approach is adopted and participants remain on

the surface or in the polite stages of interaction, their relationship will also

be temporary or will not build enough resilience to withstand the political or

security crisis. In fact, many dialogue groups have collapsed once violence

escalated within or between their groups due to the lack of trust and lack of

commitment.

Tackling the hard issues means that the dialoguers in the interreligious

encounters have allowed themselves to venture into the disputed areas that

in the past had generated and will continue to generate distrust and suspicion

between the members faith groups. For example, in Muslim and European

dialogue groups issues such as historical crusade campaigns, colonialism, Pal-

estinian issues, and Islamophobia are examples of challenging themes that

have to be addressed in order to reach a level of trust and sense of honesty

in the discussion. On a theological level, issues such as: a) recognition of the

Holy Trinity as a fundamental difference between Islam, Judaism, and Christi-

anity; b) recognition of Islam as a faith or religion by the Christian and Jewish

religious institutions; c) the concept of jihad in Islam; d) sexual orientations

in all religions; e) gender roles; etc., are issues that need to be raised and

explored. When the encounter deliberately avoids these controversial issues

and focuses on the interreligious commonalities such as peace, forgiveness,

justice, prayers, fasting, or charity, etc., the dialogue space become less risky,

less vulnerable, and more comfortable for its members to maintain their nega-

tive perceptions of the others too.

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CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE PATH OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Obviously delving into the difcult issues needs to be done in a gradual

and professional way. In addition, it needs to be built on the phase of exploring

interpersonal and intercultural commonalities. However, the process should

not stop there with these commonalities. Critical thinking and critical self-

reection emerge from the dialogical encounter that confronts the differences

and controversial issues. In fact, the respect for diversity deepens when mem-

bers of different faith groups realize that there are inherent contradictions and

differences that the dialogue cannot bridge and those ought to be accepted and

respected as part of the relationship.

Taking such an approach to the culture of dialogical encounters may pro-

duce a stronger belief in religious diversity and pluralism.

Dialogical encounters are also based on the principle of action. The in-

terreligious encounter is limited in its effect or success when it remains on

the abstract level and participants are not able to commit to any sort of joint

or unilateral action. Such process or dynamic is often cited as a limitation of

many interreligious dialogue or encounters, “these are talking shop encoun-

ters” is a statement repeated by many critics.

To walk the talk is an expectation that is often shared by participants in

the initial interreligious dialogue encounter. Members of the different faith

groups join the encounter because they are frustrated from their reality and

the type of relationship their community has with the other faith groups. Thus,

they want to change. However, they soon realize that the members differ in

their capacity, willingness, and awareness of what they can do and what needs

to done. Thus, the interreligious encounter becomes a platform for exploring

what can be done together and separately to respond to the challenges facing

the faith groups.

A common paradox within interreligious encounters is the dynamics or

interplay between members of the minority faith groups. They often join an

encounter in order to change the dominant political, social, and cultural struc-

tures, which impose certain limitations on their religious rights and aspira-

tions. On the other hand, members of the dominant faith group often join an

encounter to learn about other faith; discover commonalities; and in many

cases partially relief themselves from the burden of guilt of being labelled as

members of the dominant (oppressive or privileged) group.

This tension be-

4. See Hurtado on Intergroup dialogue…; See Abu-Nimer. (1999) Encounter between Arabs and

Jews in Israel.

122

MOHAMMED ABU-NIMER

tween Muslims and Christians in the European context is reected by the de-

mand of the Muslim minority groups asking and advocating for the encounter

outcome to be policy oriented, namely to change European states’ regulations

regarding the production of halal meat; circumcision; religious education;

etc. Conversely at the starting point of the encounter, dominant faith majority

members (Christians or secular participants) do not necessarily see this as a

problem or obstacle that urgently needs to be changed.

Regardless of the nature of the action that has been agreed upon by the

members within the encounter, it is essential that such action be jointly de-

signed and implemented by the various faith groups. The joint action pro-

duced by the interreligious encounter is the glue that binds the interfaith group

together and advances the chances to create sustained dialogue.

There are many conditions that determine or shape the nature of the joint

action which the interreligious encounter group produces, some of these in-

clude: power symmetry dynamics between the faith groups; the duration of

the encounter (short or long term engagement); the availability of a profes-

sional third party facilitator for the encounter; the degree of threat and obsta-

cle generated by the context of the encounter (low level of violence versus

high level of religiously motivated violence); engagement or non-engagement

of the policy makers in the process.

Unfortunately, the scope of this chapter does not allow further explora-

tion of these conditions and possible ways to reduce their negative effect on

interreligious encounters. Nevertheless, as an organizer of interreligious en-

counters, it is important to be aware that such internal and external conditions

can shape the level of success of the encounter and alter the motivation and

wider impact of the dialogue experience.

The above six principles of interreligious encounters are obviously appli-

cable to other forms of encounters, too. Also, this is not an exhaustive list of

principles that can enhance interreligious encounters, however they are cen-

tral in shaping the process, design, and outcome of the dialogue.

Having explored the principles for interreligious dialogical encounters,

we can move now to the remaining questions of this chapter that focus on the

limitations of interreligious dialogue from an institutional perspective.

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CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE PATH OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

3. obstACles in institutionAlizinG interreliGious diAloGiCAl enCounters

As stated above, research and practice of dialogue and encounters have

identied many principles and conditions for effective encounters. There is

no shortage in theoretical frameworks or guidelines to articulate the process

and dynamics of a positive encounter.

Despite this reality, the eld of Inter-

religious Dialogue (IRD) is still in its infancy as professional eld. There are

internal and external factors that affect the development of this eld as an ef-

fective form of interreligious interaction. The following are few of the central

factors:

3.1. Religious agencies lack institutional commitment to interreligious

encounters

There is no doubt that in the past two decades, there has been a signicant

increase in the interest and willingness of policy makers and religious actors

and agencies to engage in dialogue.

Nevertheless these engagements remain

either on the symbolic level of or serve as “lip service” to appease policy mak-

ers who are pursuing the engagement of religious agencies to counter violent

extremism.

In most conict areas, especially in the southern hemisphere, govern-

ment and security agencies have included the engagement with religious au-

thorities as part of their strategies to counter terrorism and violent extremism.

Thus, religious agencies have to respond to the pressure of the governed

agencies to show that they are moderate or open enough to accommodate a

certain level of religious diversity. Thus, muftis and patriarchs are invited by

5. See David Bohm (1996) On Dialogue; David Schoem and Sylivia Hurtado. (2001) Intergroup

Dialogue: Deliberative Democracy in School College, Community ad Workplace; Christopher H. (2015)

Grundmann Interreligious Dialogue; David R. Smock. (2001) Interfaith Dialogue and Peacebuilding; Mo-

hammed Abu-Nimer. (2012) Dialogue, Conict Resolition and Change: Arab-Jewish Encounters in Israel.

6. Examples and evidence to support the analysis presented in the following section is based on

the author’s engagement with KAICIID’s interreligious encounter programs between 2013-2019, in four

main regions: Central African Republic (CAR), Nigeria, Myanmar, and the Arab region. Also, other exam-

ples are derived from series of interfaith training conducted within the Interreligious Fellowship program

which have trained over 250 fellows from the ve major faith groups (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Bud-

dhism, and Hinduism).

7. See David Little (2007) Peacemakers in Action: Proles of Religion in Conict Resolution; Mo-

hammed Abu-Nimer and Michelle Gerrad (2018) Making Peace with Faith; etc.

124

MOHAMMED ABU-NIMER

government agencies and intergovernmental organizations to participate in

and even initiate programs with a focus on dialogue, tolerance and religious

freedom.

Despite this fast growth in the number of meetings and projects

for religious freedom, interreligious dialogue, and religious pluralism and

diversity, the formal and traditional religious authorities and their institutions

have not made a clear institutional shift in their structure to ensure that IRD

and the culture of religious encounter is an integral part of their theological

and operational structures. Indeed, there are designated individuals in the Is-

lamic, Jewish, and Christian religious institutions however these individuals

and their centres or departments rarely have the necessary human or nancial

resources to further the signicance of interreligious encounters institution-

ally. For example, compare how much such institutions spend on missionary

work or internal theological education versus how much is being spent on

interreligious encounters.

Most religious institutions have compartmentalized their IRD work or

have designated one individual whose mission is to persuade the various reli-

gious associations in his faith group to adopt IRD as a priority or plan of ac-

tion. Regardless of whether IRD is conned into a small unit in the religious

authority structure or designated to one person, it remains marginalized in

comparison to the priorities of religious institutions as whole. Thus, when

such individuals are removed or simply die of old age, it takes a long period

of time to select another person or to resume the IRD engagement in these

institutions. Sustained institutional IRD is still missing in most religious au-

thority structures.

3.2. Theological obstruction of dialogical encounters

In most religious institutions the production of new knowledge and new

leadership is done through their system of theological seminaries and other

higher education systems. A brief examination of at least 40 Christian and

Muslim religious seminaries’ curricula and syllabi indicated very few of them

8. Recently US government convened its second annual Ministerial meeting focusing on religious

freedom and religious pluralism with over 100 government represented and approximately 1000 civil so-

ciety and FBOs groups. In addition, most European Union countries have appointed a special envoy for

religious freedom. These specialized ambassadors for religious freedom are spreading the message that di-

alogue encounter is also an effective tool to expand the space for religious freedom.

125

CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE PATH OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

have included IRD or the art of interreligious encounter in their formal sys-

tem. Thousands of Christian and Muslim religious scholars have graduated

from seminaries and Sharia colleges without receiving any education about

the need for interreligious dialogue. The concept of the interreligious dialogi-

cal encounter is strange to them. In fact, many of such graduates have been

socialized to debate and defend the faith in every interaction they have with

the other faith groups.

How can such graduates educate for religious plural-

ism and spread culture of dialogue if they themselves have did not receive

the basic skills and training of dialogical encounters. Integrating the concept

of IRD in these theological seminaries could be a major contributor to the

spreading of culture dialogue in such context.

3.3. Constructive Engagement of Policy makers

In most parts of the world the majority of the religious institutions are

under the political authority or are governed by laws and regulations. Such

reality is an opportunity to expand the engagement of policy makers with

religious authority to strengthen the eld of IRD in such institutions. Govern-

ment and policy makers can enhance the culture of encounter by intention-

ally supporting dialogue and religious diversity programs in formal educa-

tion systems as well. In many parts of the world, especially in conict areas

the engagement of policy makers with religious institutions and actors is

often negative and manipulative. Politicians engage religion to gain wider

electoral support and policy makers appeal to religious authority to support

certain policies and assist them in disseminating them to the grass roots and

their communities. Such manipulation of religious leaders affects their cred-

ibility and capacity to preach positive and genuine messages in the society.

Thus, it weakens their ability to call for an encounter with the other faith

groups or their capacity to call for joint action with other faith groups to ad-

vance justice and equality.

9. Based on series of consultations conducted with Muslim and Christian theological seminaries in

the Arab region between 2016-2019.

126

MOHAMMED ABU-NIMER

3.4. Getting stuck in the CVE/PVE Loop

In many instances where the engagement between religious agencies and

policy makers is well-established, the context is limited to either countering

violence extremism and/or preventing violent extremism. These approaches

bring with them several challenges that extend beyond the issue of the poten-

tial loss of legitimacy for religious leaders and agencies within their own com-

munities. They risk damaging the ability to build trust among certain groups

within the encounter because of the potential reinforcement that both the CVE

and PVE narratives have on Islamophobia and thus foster an approach of “de-

fensive Islam” particularly for Muslim countries or institutions that develop

programs and projects aimed to join policy makers and religious agencies.

These approaches also remain locked in securitization, which makes it dif-

cult to detach programs and projects from terrorism, fundamentally prevent-

ing the ability to develop a meaningful encounter.

4. ConClusion

In human history, societies and people have struggled to construct social

systems that facilitate peaceful encounters. Nevertheless, there have been al-

ways a voice and a trace of knowledge and experience that pointed human be-

ings towards dialogue and peaceful encounters with the other. Such thread is

also manifested in every faith group. Religions share common values of peace,

mercy, love, and respect of human dignity. Unfortunately, the implementation

and transmission of these values into sustainable structures to regulate peo-

ple’s lives have been extremely limited, especially in wider social systems.

Most if not all children are deprived of the possibilities to live in dialogical

cooperative systems; instead they are well trained in competitive culture.

A strong culture of dialogical encounter is an effective social and psycho-

logical immunization tool that any society or agency can use to equip its mem-

bers with to prevent religious-based violence, to enhance its capacity to con-

structively resolve its conicts peacefully. A society that has integrated culture

of dialogical encounters within its system grants its members safe spaces to

10. See Abu-Nimer, M. (2017). Alternative Approaches to Transforming Violence Extremism: The

Case of Islamic Peace and Interreligious Peacebuilding. In the Berghof Handbook.

127

CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER: THE PATH OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

explore creative ways to respect diversity and view such diversity as a source

of strength as opposed to source of disunity and fragmentation.

This chapter articulated basic principles that can be integrated in the in-

terreligious encounter to maximize its impact in transforming misperception

and distrust in other faith into a more dialogical relationship. Overcoming the

limitations and obstacles by adopting these principles in society are not only

the responsibility of the religious institutions and their structures, but also of

policy makers.

Obviously, there are good practices in the eld of IRD that can be utilized

as best practice models and effective templates to advance the culture of dia-

logical encounters. These experiences need to be celebrated and recognized

by religious authorities and policy makers as well. Such a shift in the priorities

of these institutions requires a deeper examination of their role in spreading

and sustaining the current structures of violence that regulate the lives of most

humans. Constructively shifting and transforming these structures of violence

cannot be done without a well-developed framework for dialogical encounter.

129

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS

TO THE CREATION OF A CULTURE OF PEACE

AleJAndro GAroFAli ACostA

1. instAbility FACtors oF A Convulsed world – while wAitinG For A new

order

At the dawn of the third millennium, the international community faces

multidimensional challenges, some of which pose real risks to the survival of

man, like never before in history. Uncertain times for global peace, security

and health initiatives and institutions that are overwhelmed by a long list of

threats and weaknesses, including economic-nancial instability, undermining

of social cohesion, increasing inequality and marginalization, uncontrolled cli-

mate phenomena with progressive destruction of habitat and accelerated loss of

biodiversity. A long chain of processes and global problems of urgent attention

such as migration, vulnerability of entire populations and systematic violation

of human rights, climatic variability and natural disasters, emergence of pests

and diseases with potential for total extermination, added to the phenomenon

of terrorism in their various manifestations, transnational crime, reedition of

weapon proliferation career, neoprotectionism, cracking of old paradigms of

regional integration, technological fragmentation among societies and many

other problems resulting from the abusive management of the common house

by man and the displacement of attention to the dignity of people, due to ex-

cessive materialism, objectication of human processes and great inequality in

access to the benets of modern civilization (Edward Newman: 2007).

130

ALEJANDRO GAROFALI ACOSTA

In current times, man gives plenty of evidence of attitude of dominator,

extreme consumer or mere exploiter of resources, unable to put a limit on his

immediate interests. However, it is not too late to implement corrective meas-

ures, which must necessarily come from the very origin of the problem, from

man and the organized international society at local, regional and global level

to preserve creation, as inspired by Pope Francis (Francis: 2015).

The responses that have been tried in recent years by the world interstate

system –the one developed after the last world war and still standing–, seem

to be those of disaggregation of efforts and fragmentation. This threatens the

possibility of coordinated action by everyone in face of the most pressing

problems on the planet (without nally binding agreements on environmen-

tal, migration, disarmament, trade and coordination of nancial and economic

systems, and a long etcetera).

The existential column of humanity, world peace and security, are being

held hostage to centrifugal processes and to the decomposition of the very

foundations of the system of governance that the humankind adopted in late

40ʼs, the United Nations (UN).

We have before us a scenario of geopolitical and geoeconomic insecu-

rity in which the multilateral system and traditional alliance structures of the

second half of the 20th century begin to blur in a context of political and

economic confrontation between countries and blocks. Multilateralism is go-

ing through a very difcult hour, subjected to constant stress test proving its

validity and relevance, resisting yielding to emerging unilateral visions and

impositions of nationalist positions focused on mere domestic agendas and

political polarization within many nations with its consequential spill over to

the global arena (Ramesh Thakur, Edward Newman and John Triman: 2009,

160-178). It has the aspect of a crisis, of decomposition of the system, espe-

cially when thinking of major issues long tackled and negotiated for decades

and with principles of agreement, that have been left aside, forcing a paralysis

of multilateral diplomacy and creating uncertainty in the system (Luis Gal-

legos: 2019).

And more than ever, to subsidize these already structural shortcomings,

the UN has been called to act, since its creation and in its constant evolution in

75 years, towards a universal institution with desired authority, legitimacy and

competence to clean up what the States and other international actors have not

been able to deliver (although these aspects of its identity are permanently de-

bated, pending a comprehensive reform to enhance and correct shortcomings

131

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO THE CREATION OF A CULTURE OF PEACE

and improve its capacities). Much or little, the UN is what the organized inter-

national community has been able to give itself as institutional mechanism for

multilateral management. And in matters of peace and security, the responsi-

bility continues to fall on the shoulders of its Security Council (SC). Although

in the near future the SC will continue to carry its conception sin from post

war era, there is an increasing feeling that someday it will see the dawn of a

legitimacy based more on democratic principles than on sovereignty (Robert

Keohane: 2006 and 2011, 99-109).

2. AttemPted solutions by suCCessive APProAChes. one oF them, the

resPonsibility to ProteCt (r2P)

Without fatalistic intention or dramatic spirit, we can say that the world

today is facing a turning point and it is against this background that we must

rescue what is positive of multilateralism and the construction of regions ar-

ticulated in it, to allow humanity to advance, renewing efforts and being able

to reshape the world system in the decade that begins. The global, continental

and regional commitment must be renewed as a sine qua non, inescapable,

urgent condition, in order to achieve results that cope efciently with current

global problems. An example of these lines of commitment is given in the

UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Agenda 2030 to achieve them

without leaving anyone behind. And also, for its part and until a new system

can be designed and implemented, the commitment to continue supporting

multilateral mechanisms dealing with peace and security problems (mostly

but not limited to peacekeeping and development operations), and the various

proposals and strategies for building peace both by the UN, its Member States

and many other relevant international actors.

At the genesis of the current system, still in force, we nd the San Fran-

cisco Charter of 1945, which grants the UN and in particular its Security

Council, a fundamental role in the maintenance of international peace and

security and contemplates the possibility of adoption of effective collective

measures to prevent or avoid threats to peace and to suppress acts of aggres-

sion or other breaches of the peace that may in certain circumstances include

the use of armed force.

From a legal point of view, the use by the UN through the SC of collective

and coercive measures can even lead to the use of armed force. As a last resort,

132

ALEJANDRO GAROFALI ACOSTA

in cases of humanitarian catastrophes when a State is unable or unwilling to

protect its civilian population in these situations, this intervention nds its

justication in the UN Charter itself. Article 24 confers on the SC the primary

responsibility for maintaining international peace and security and its article

39 gives it the power to determine the existence of any threat to peace, its

breach or act of aggression, as well as the possibility of adopting measures

collective and coercive that even require the use of force to maintain or restore

international peace and security, taking into account art. 41 (measures that do

not involve the use of force) and 42 (use of force to restore international peace

and security). The SC in exercise of its functions must proceed in accordance

with the Purposes and Principles of Chapter I of the UN Charter and has the

aforementioned legal basis that enables it to adopt collective and coercive

measures, including the use of force. The Charter grants it a certain degree

of discretion in dening the need for its application, which has given not a

few occasions of tensions – actions and inactions reproached/criticized alike

(Philipp Panizza: 2011, 109-116).

The rst example of the application of measures of article 41 by the CS

was the case of racial discrimination in present-day Zimbabwe in 1966, with

measures of embargo of arms and oil. Regarding the authorization of the use of

military force (Sanctions Committees and other Committees, Security Coun-

cil, UN: 2019), the rst example was when the invasion of Iraq into Kuwait

occurred in 1990, thanks to a change in the international political scene after

the end of the Cold War, particularly in relations among the great powers, their

new equation of forces and the emergence of other state and non-state actors.

In the mid-1990s, the genocides in Rwanda in 1994 and in Srebrenica

in 1995, constituted real humanitarian catastrophes that claimed the lives of

almost one million people of the Tutsi ethnic group and eight thousand of the

Bosnian Muslim ethnic group, respectively. The urgent need to encourage re-

spect for human rights and to put humanitarian issues on a priority level was

highlighted. It is in this context that the international community begins to

perceive the need to react to events of this nature. Indeed, since the 1990s, the

humanitarian issue has acquired a dimension of its own and a major role in the

eld of peacekeeping and in the international sphere, coming to be called the

“humanitarian era”. In 1999, UN Secretary General Ko Annan, in his report

to the UNGAʼs Millennium Summit (Ko A. Annan: 2000, 48), dared to point

out that humanitarian intervention is a delicate issue, fraught with political

difculties and without easy solutions. But surely there is no legal principle

133

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO THE CREATION OF A CULTURE OF PEACE

– not even sovereignty – that can be invoked to protect perpetrators of crimes

against humanity. In places where such crimes are committed and attempts to

end them by peaceful means have been exhausted, the SC has a moral duty to

act on behalf of the international community. Armed intervention must con-

tinue to be the last resort, but in the face of mass murder, it is an option that

we must not reject.

Thus, the door was opened to a new concept, the Responsibility to Protect

(and its prospective and promising evolution into international norm), which

would go beyond the traditional limits of both the sovereignty of States and

the principle of non-intervention and would also offer new projections to the

discussion on exceptions that t the prohibition of the use of force in interna-

tional relations. Starting with the 2001 report of the International Commission

on Intervention and Sovereignty of the UN States, the concept of R2P receives

support in various international instruments and evolved into an incipient in-

stitutional framework to serve it from the UN system, with its own Ofce and

Special Advisor to the Secretary General of UN.

The concept was unanimously incorporated in the Final Document of the

2005 World Summit of Heads of State that took place within the framework

of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), Resolution 60/1 (UNGA, Sixtieth Ses-

sion: 2005), while also capturing its 3 pillars. In its paragraphs 138 and 139

the three pillars of the concept are reected. The rst pillar afrms that “each

State is responsible for protecting its population from genocide, war crimes,

ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. This responsibility includes

the prevention of said crimes, including incitement to their commission, by

taking appropriate and necessary measures. As a second pillar, it is maintained

that “the international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help

States to exercise that responsibility and help the UN to establish an early

warning capacity”. And as a third pillar, it is indicated that “the international

community, through the UN, also has the responsibility of using diplomatic,

humanitarian and other appropriate peaceful means, in accordance with Chap-

ters VI (peaceful settlement of disputes) and VIII (regional agreements) of the

Charter to help protect populations from the aforementioned crimes”.

The Final Document indicates that the international community, through

the UN, is ready to adopt collective measures, in a timely and decisive man-

ner, through the SC, in accordance with the Charter, including its Chapter VII

(action in case of threats to peace, breaches of the peace or acts of aggression,

articles 39 to 51), in each specic case and in collaboration with the relevant

134

ALEJANDRO GAROFALI ACOSTA

regional organizations when appropriate, if it is shown that the peaceful means

are inadequate and that the national authorities do not manifestly protect to its

population of those crimes.

Likewise, it points to the need for the UNGA, “to continue examining the

responsibility to protect populations from these crimes, as well as their con-

sequences, taking into account the principles of the Charter and international

law”. Since 2009 the SG presents reports to the UNGA), on mobilization of

collective action on the R2P.

This has led to several interactive dialogues at the UNGA and has resulted

in building trust in this concept of international guardianship. Summarizing

the same, it is worth remembering that the coercive measures envisaged to

activate the mechanism are limited to four massive atrocities (genocide, war

crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity) and should be given

whenever the Security Council considers that the peaceful means are not or

have not been adequate or it is evident that the State is unable or unwilling to

fulll its primary R2P its population. On the other hand, no mechanism of ac-

tivation or automatic response of the UN is established, but the measures must

be analyzed case by case by the SC. In accordance with the provisions of the

UN Charter, for these actions to be established, a CS resolution is required to

order or authorize said measures under the applicable article of the Charter (41

or 42). This can only be achieved after having determined the commission or

danger of committing one or more of the four crimes cited, having addressed

the lack of protection of the population and describing the non-protection of

the State to its population as a “threat to peace worldwide” and also determine

as necessary to apply sanctions to prevent or end such crimes. Apart from

having evidence of the Stateʼs failure to comply with its duty to protect, the

condition of recourse to force at the UN or the requirement of a last ratio is

that the peaceful means of solution have previously been inadequate. Once

the CS resolution has been adopted, it, pursuant to Article 25 of the Charter,

becomes mandatory and binding.

As can be seen, the SC has a legal basis that enables it to adopt collective

and coercive measures, which include the use of force and grants it a certain

degree of discretion in dening the need for its application.

The issue of applying the principle of R2P as the basis for a timely and

decisive response continues to be the subject of debate, especially on the

mechanisms and procedures through which to make it operational (Isabel

García Martin: 2017, 173-193). There are also some further developments

135

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO THE CREATION OF A CULTURE OF PEACE

such as the concept of Responsible Protection proposed on the basis of the

R2P, to expand its application and supervision mechanisms to make it effec-

tive as a response from the organized international community, at the internal

level of a State to crimes against its population. As Emilio Menéndez del Valle

points out, these R2P and Responsible Protection initiatives are “an attempt to

positively respond to the controversy caused by the illegal action of NATO in

Libya in 2011 and in the face of the blockade suffered by the CS in that cause

in relation to Syria”, in addition to trying to test “proposals aimed at convinc-

ing the ve greats of the Council to refrain from using the right of veto on

issues related to the commission of heinous crimes” (Emilio Menéndez del

Valle: 2016).

Specically, the humanitarian catastrophe that occurred in the conict in

Syria is one of the most agrant cases of limits to the action of the SC and the

recourse to the principle of the R2P. Some states disagree on implementation

based on the concept of sovereignty and its corollary the principle of non-

intervention, others due to mistrust that the intervention conceals other inter-

ests. The main mistake is to focus the institute of R2P only on the possibility

of resorting to force and not on prevention (Noële Crossley: 2016).

3. the need to move on. reAlisinG rtoP As norm

Nothing seems a walk in the clouds when it comes to the process of giv-

ing birth to an international norm, particularly if it is in the eld of peace and

security, in the authorized and legitimate use of force by international com-

munity. Thus, the consolidation of the principle and implementation of the

R2P is taking tortuous path to be accepted and applied as mandatory rule in

the situations intended to solve or alleviate.

Taking immediate collective action when required in observance of the

provisions so far started for R2P has cope with inefciencies and recurring

lack of will in the international community, mostly related to problems aris-

ing from the political structure of the UN Security Council, often leaving

individual or coalitions of states to uphold their ethical responsibility, with

or without UN Security Council authorization. The resource to R2P has also

been abused by those who seek to justify their own doings on the basis of

protecting human rights in the absence of international action reaction (Pınar

Gözen Ercan: 2012). Such incidents of misuse of the R2P have been feeding

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ALEJANDRO GAROFALI ACOSTA

the detractors’ arguments against its institutionalization, while jeopardizing

its normative viability and elevating concerns and scepticism among many

developing states on its possible deviated invocations and applications in

concrete cases.

Today there may be no doubt that each State is primarily responsible for

the protection of its civilians, as conrmed at the 2005 World Summit and the

frequent reiterations from SC and UNGA on contemporary conicts claim-

ing reaction for States in the protection of its population. Similarly, there are

no difculties in recognizing that if a State is unable or unwilling to comply

with that obligation, the international community (that is, the other States,

in an organized way through UN), must act to prevent and help that State

to protect its civilians. The main controversies arise in the third pillar of the

R2P, regarding the need to act through the UN Security Council as well as in

the impact of this emerging institute on state sovereignty. On the one hand,

it is understood that the sovereignty of the State carries responsibilities and

the State itself has the main R2P its population and, on the other hand, when

the population is suffering serious damage as a result of a civil war or other

situations, and that state does not want to or cannot stop or avoid said suf-

ferings, the international R2P should take priority over the principle of non-

intervention, giving reason for action to the international community, that is,

of the other States through the SC. It is there that the moral duty of action of

the CS gains its virtue, as advanced by Ko Annan, promoter of the institute

of R2P, requiring that the organized international community replace this

deciency of the State and exercise its responsibility, putting into practice the

mechanisms of security provided in the UN Charter.

Relevant disagreements come from the second obligation: whether or not

the international community is activated in case the State is unable or unwill-

ing to fulll the obligation to protect. Hence, all the efforts of the doctrine, of

the UNGA, of the states that defend the institute, and of the SC itself to inte-

grate it into its Resolutions are indispensable to overcome the “doubts” that

may originate the disagreements and attempt to the nal stance to consolidate

the R2P.

On this stance is useful to refer to the frequency and relevance of the

invocations and references to R2P at different UN organizational levels. The

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P), an international

non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy for the

R2P, provides statistics showing that to the end of 2019, not less than 83 SC

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THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO THE CREATION OF A CULTURE OF PEACE

Resolutions and Presidential Statements refer to R2P,

while 15 Resolutions

from the UNGA have been informed by the R2P.

Indeed, to follow up on evolution and latest state of situations relevant

to R2P, the GCR2P issues periodical reports available for the international

community, to appreciate the transcendence of enhancing the role of R2P and

to help in the consistent implementation of the principle (GCR2P Monitor).

The different actors, civil society, states and UN itself, have been mo-

bilizing as international community to promote the evolution of R2P. It is to

recall the inception of a specic entity to deal with R2P at the UN, organi-

cally: The Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, conceived by SG

Ban Ki Moon in 2008. Since then the Ofce on Genocide Prevention and the

Responsibility to Protect supports the work of two Special Advisers who re-

port directly to the United Nations Secretary-General (the Special Adviser on

the Prevention of Genocide, who raises awareness of the causes and dynam-

ics of genocide, alerts relevant actors where there is a risk of genocide, and

advocates and mobilizes for appropriate action; and the Special Adviser on

the Responsibility to Protect, leads the conceptual, political, institutional and

operational development of the Responsibility to Protect).

On other hand, in realising the internalization of R2P as an international

legal norm there are also difculties in activating its second pillar, that of deter-

mining the need for action by the SC, conforming the need for intervention by

the international community. For this to happen, it must be understood that R2P

is an institution endowed with content, mechanisms and limits, which allows

States and the International Community to put an end to atrocity situations.

In keeping the impulse for perfecting the R2P, the UNGA and the UN

Secretary General have been involved in the promotion of open debate on the

R2P, initiating with the debate in 2009 of UNGA and the adoption of a Reso-

lution to continue consideration of the norm (UNGA RES/63/308), in 2010,

following a special debate by then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Until

2016 annual UNGA held Interactive Dialogues on diverse topics related to R2P

1. https://www.globalr2p.org/resources/un-security-council-resolutions-and-presidential-state-

ments-referencing-r2p/ (last accessed: 2020/0210).

2. https://www.globalr2p.org/resources/un-general-assembly-resolutions-referencing-r2p-2/ (last

accessed: 2020/02/10).

3. https://www.globalr2p.org/publications/r2p-monitor-issue-49-15-january-2020/ (last accessed:

2020/02/02).

4. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/security-council.shtml (last accessed: 2019/11/04).

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ALEJANDRO GAROFALI ACOSTA

such as Early Warning, Assessment; the Role of Regional and Sub-regional

Arrangements in Implementing the Responsibility to Protect; Timely and De-

cisive Response; State Responsibility and Prevention; International Assistance;

Vital and Enduring Commitment in Implementing the R2P and nally in 2017

a debate on Mobilizing Collective Action: The Next Decade of the R2P.

One of the highlights of the approach to consolidation of R2P at UN has

been the Report of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon “Implementing

the Responsibility to Protect”, issued in January 2009. It is the rst compre-

hensive analysis document prepared by the UN Secretariat on the R2P, as

a response to the commitment of the Secretary General to turn the concept

into policy, an enforceable provision into reality. It proposes a terminological

framework for understanding R2P and outlines measures and actors involved

in implementing an approach in three proposed pillars: the First Pillar, stresses

that States have the primary responsibility to protect their populations from

the four crimes stated in the original 2005 conception of the R2P, the Second

Pillar; addresses the commitment of the international community to provide

assistance to States in building capacity to protect their populations from those

crimes and to assisting those which are under stress before crises and conicts

break out; and the Third Pillar focuses on the responsibility of international

community to take timely and decisive action to prevent and halt genocide,

ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity when a State is

manifestly failing to protect its populations. The Secretary General particu-

larly enhances the importance of early warning and prevention.

4. the ACAdemiC debAte on r2P

The factual and academic controversy has not been settled and much at-

tention has been paid to R2P, at times producing antagonistic literature, still

without conclusive consensus on its nature neither its immediate future.

Some promoters support arguments of its plain consolidation as norm that

can lead to changes in behavior of states and international community (Alex

Bellamy: 2009; Gareth Evans: 2009 and James Pattison: 2010).

Other authors give R2P a more normative approach in its legal develop-

ment from its initial concept to the role of emerging powers and balance of

forces that motivate a demand driven formulation of R2P in UN debates and

documents (Ramesh Thakur: 2016).

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THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO THE CREATION OF A CULTURE OF PEACE

While there are others (Aidan Hehir: 2019), that indicate the legal, nor-

mative value of R2P is not so relevant, not disputing if R2P is a norm nor

declaring that norms are insignicant, mostly pointing in a post-positivist

constructivist approach on the fact that efcacy of the norm should not be

directly related to the extent of its proliferation or its repeated normative in-

vocation and that R2P, after its institutionalization as norm has gone through

contestation and regressive reinterpretation. Furthermore, some other author

points to the need of reformulating R2P (Pinar Gözen Ercan: 2016). She takes

the concept beyond considering R2P a ground-breaking norm and giving rel-

evance to the evolution of R2P to an international moral norm with signicant

implications for its implementation as for the expectations it creates in terms

of impacting and driving state actions, thus the conception of R2P as a moral

standard for appropriate state behavior.

The same author had also pointed out early that legal developments have

given rise to claims that a positive duty to prevent genocide and mass atroci-

ties is emerging (Pınar Gözen Ercan: 2012), and although R2P as a norm in

evolution can be seen as a part of “de lege ferenda”, the analysis of individual

statements of Member States and the general evolution of the Rt2P norm with-

in the UN framework may reveal that its phase of the norm life cycle it is not

yet that of a fully established norm.

In a normative valuation of the principle of R2P, it is perceived that to-

day the international community cannot afford neither allow itself to ignore

agrant violations of human rights by claiming a classic concept of Westphal-

ian sovereignty. On the contrary, through the institute of the R2P, the notion

of sovereignty as responsibility is reinforced, which responds to a change in

the legal conguration of the principle of sovereign equality in relation to the

traditional conception of sovereignty. Sovereignty has to be understood in the

present as the power of States that not only contains rights that are inherent to

it as a State, but which in turn involves duties, very relevant ones. Sovereignty

implies not only the enjoyment of rights but also the exercise of responsibili-

ties (Heber Arbuet-Vignali & Washington Baliero Silva: 2018). This results in

the responsibility to act in situations that pose a real need for the protection of

people. This aspect is seen in the practice of the States and in the position of

the SC in its resolutions as well as that of other UN bodies (“sovereignty with

responsibility”).

Extracting some positive lines from the general debate, it can be stated that

there may be no incompatibility between the revised concept of sovereignty as

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ALEJANDRO GAROFALI ACOSTA

a combination of the rights and obligations of States and the exercise by the

international community through the Security Council and within the frame-

work of the procedures established in the UN Charter of the principle of the

R2P in those cases where the primary responsible, which is the state, does not

observe its due compliance.

5. r2P And relAted AsPeCts in deFense And ProteCtion oF the most

vulnerAble

Thus, the functions related to the implementation of the R2P would be

to prevent, to react and to rebuild within the framework of the fundamental

obligations stated since 2005 in the UN system.

In that line, the prevention actions in observance of the R2P should not

be interpreted as an interference in the internal affairs of States or its foreign

policy aspects but should be understood as a guarantee of compliance with

fundamental principles and norms of the international legal order. Its objective

or purpose is not to violate the principles of State sovereignty and non-inter-

vention, but rather that States and the international community adopt certain

behaviors to avoid having to resort to more extreme actions in protection of

civilians, that is, to intervention. Hence, prevention and early warning are the

most important dimensions of the R2P. Its central core is and should be pre-

vention and that is where the UN has to put the greatest efforts, improving and

creating new prevention mechanisms under strict conditions of need, so that

this does not generate controversies, nor does it affect the legal assets of States

such as sovereignty, but benet them. In this sense, the obligation to prevent

conicts or such situations is part of the R2P.

Moreover, the function of rebuilding, reconstruction and reconciliation

– inserted in the R2P, should not pose major problems either, as they are ex-

ercised after the reaction function that is where the problem is, as we have

discussed before. The aim is for the international community to help restore

and consolidate peace and security and promote governance and sustainable

development together with the local authorities of the State in question, with

the purpose of gradually transferring such responsibility to that state.

Furthermore, as a matter of principle, a gradualness in the adoption of

measures (less to more intrusive and coercive), must be taken into account,

when producing interventions based on the principle of R2P.

141

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO THE CREATION OF A CULTURE OF PEACE

Although the content and scope of the R2P seem quite clear in the current

international legal order, gradually so do its doctrinal and conceptual deni-

tions, as well as the operational proles that congure it. It remains still to

see in practice the degree of formal acceptance and support for its institution-

alization by the States that make up the international community. The main

controversies focus on the specic cases in which the R2P must be activated,

the institutional system that would serve as its support, and the limits and

conditions that must be respected, especially when the function of reacting is

exercised, given that the notion of R2P follows an evolution consistent with

the profound changes and transformations of international society after the

birth of the UN Charter.

6. A better Future, more PeACeFul And Just – with And beyond r2P (And

other P And r’s)

After the previous considerations we may be able to extract some lines of

recommended action to operationalize R2P and let it function for the ultimate

goal it was conceived, ght and eradicate the four mass crimes and atrocities

that still affects signicant part of population. These ideas that have somehow

been already referred to in different debates and several documents by the

doctrine, academy and UN system considerations on R2P since its adoption

in 2005.

Timely and proportionate response has more to do with prevention than

reaction itself. As important also is to include in a holistic approach to R2P

the aspects of reconstruction or rebuild after interventions of reaction to stop

the four crimes contemplated under R2P. That is why we refer to the other P

of prevention and the R’s, of rebuild and repair. The R2P initiatives to be con-

sistent with all aspects of UN commitments, including those of the Agenda

2030 and the modern conception of developmental peace, should necessarily

include provisions in terms of early warning and prevention (either through

mediation and preventive diplomacy or other mechanisms at hand). Thus,

strengthening national and regional preventive capacities and deployment

of strategies to condence-building among States must be contemplated in

these provisions. From the humanitarian side, it is more effective and allows

for efciencies in every way, even economically to act in prevention than in

reaction and reconstruction, helping the latter to be hopefully avoidable. The

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ALEJANDRO GAROFALI ACOSTA

measures and considerations on R2P by the multilateral system should avoid

through those means to have to activate the reaction phase.

In any stage of prevention and reaction based on the principle of R2P,

as well as reconstruction and reconciliation after interventions, it is highly

relevant the incumbency and competence of the International Criminal Court

(ICC). It must also be taken into account in agrant cases of war crimes,

crimes against humanity, genocide or ethnic cleansing. Ideally there could be

in place more uid mechanisms in requesting the UN Security Council itself

to refer cases to the ICC when necessary, respecting the principles of non-

intervention and legal equality of the States, but always in observance of the

ethical and legal duty to protect the most basic human rights.

At the same time, it is still necessary to reach to consensus in the inter-

national community on how to objectively operationalize and materialize all

those aspects of R2P whenever humanity requires concrete deployment, en-

suring that humanitarian aid does not become an excuse for interventions for

political, economic or other reasons.

The mandate to peacekeeping operations and all missions, humanitarian

and cooperation programs under UN umbrella, should also integrate this ho-

listic approach and include precepts of action in terms of prevention, early

warning, reconstruction and post conict reconciliation, and transfer of ca-

pacities to the concerned state.

As a possible future direction of the R2P, in time of global emergency,

maybe world leaders may agree on reconvening as they did in 2005 in a World

Summit for the completion of a pending task, the perfection the R2P. Inspired

in its origins, they may be able to project the R2P to the level it has to be vested

with to become a real mechanism for humanitarian global guard against mass

crimes, institutionally fully conceived, enforceable, transcendental in means

of implementation and above all, efcient while at the same time, respecting

all international guaranties and precepts of the UN Chart.

To advance on the multilateralism direction and produce sound and solid

mechanisms such as R2P, initially conceived to protect man from mass crimes,

above all, good global leadership is needed. It is required the commitment

of all international society, including drivers from all path of life, especially

those morally already convinced of the need of world peace and justice, such

as religious leaders and inuencers who have already initiated the interfaith

dialogue and have begun to conuence and strive for the realisation of the

common denomination in life, values.

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THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO THE CREATION OF A CULTURE OF PEACE

The obvious task ahead is monumental, not less than mobilizing the in-

ternational public opinion and particularly the international political arena to

motivate an open and realistic dialogue on the benets of adopting an interna-

tional moral norm around the concept of R2P, effective to prevent and react to

any mass crime. A movement to transform the protection of vulnerable civil-

ians into legal and moral obligation for all international actors.

7. reFerenCes

Annan, K. (2000). We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21

Century.

New York: United Nations Department of Public Information.

Arbuet-Vignali, H. & Baliero Silva, B. (2018). La responsabilidad de proteger y la

soberanía estatal. Montevideo: Consejo Uruguayo para las Relaciones Internac-

ionales – Estudio CURI 1/18.

Bellamy, A. (2009). Responsibility to Protect. The Global Effort to End Mass Atroci-

ties. Cambridge: Polity.

Crossley, N. (2016). Evaluating the Responsibility to Protect: Mass Atrocity Preven-

tion as a Consolidating Norm in International Society, Series Global Politics and

the Responsibility to Protect. London: Routledge.

Evans, G. (2009). The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once

and for All. Washington: Brookings Institution Press.

Francis (2015). Encyclical Laudato siʼon care for our common home.

w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papafranc-

esco_20150524_enciclica-laudatosi.html (last accessed 2019/08/24).

Gallegos, L. (2019). “Multilateralism crisis can lead to conicts”, EFE interview with

the Ecuadorian Ambassador Luis Gallegos to the UN, Vienna – La Vanguadia.

https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20190630/463185908023/luis-gallegos-

crisis-of-multilateralism-can-lead-to-conicts.html (last accessed 2019/07/03).

García Martin, I. (2017). “The principle of the Responsibility to Protect: Could it be a

new exception for the use of force?”. Revista Enfoques 27.

Gözen Ercan, P. (2012). “The Responsibility to Protect: an international norm?”.

USAK Yearbook of International Politics and Law, International Strategic Re-

search Organization 5, 243-262.

Gözen Ercan, P. (2016). Debating the Future of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’: The

Evolution of a Moral Norm. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Hehir, A. (2019). Hollow Norms and the Responsibility to Protect. London: Palgrave

Macmillan.

Keohane, R. (2011). “Global governance and legitimacy”. Review of International

Political Economy 18.

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Keohane, R. (2006). “The Contingent Legitimacy of Multilateralism”. GARNET

Working Paper 09/06.

Menéndez del Valle, E. (2016). “Responsabilidad de proteger: la ONU en acción”.

Real Instituto Elcano, Documento de Trabajo 2.

Newman, E. (2007). A Crisis of Global Institutions? Multilateralism and Interna-

tional Security, Global Institutions. London: Routledge.

Panizza, P. (2011). “Conict Resolution and the United Nations: A Leadership Cri-

sis?”. Journal of International Affairs 14.

Pattison, J. (2010). Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect. Ox-

ford: OUP Oxford.

Sanctions Committees and other Committees, Security Council, UN.

https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/repertoire/sanctions-and-other-

committees (last accessed 2019/05/11).

Thakur, R. (2006). The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security

to the Responsibility to Protect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thakur, R., Newman E. & Triman, J. (2009). Multilateralism Under Challenge:

Power, International Order and Structural Change. New York: United Nations

University Press.

UN (2005) General Assembly (UNGA), Sixtieth Session, Agenda Items 46 and 120,

Resolution approved by the General Assembly on September 16, 2005, A / 60 /

L.1, Final Document of the 2005 World Summit.

https: // undocs.org/es/A/RES/60/1 (last accessed 2019/06/09).

145

KAICIID AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

ÁlvAro AlbACete

1. introduCtion

In the past years, societies around the world have been exposed to major

challenges as a result of factors such as economic instabilities, cross-border

migration and volatile political conditions. These phenomena contributed to

increased tensions between communities of different cultural identities, creat-

ing the need to address the challenges in an integrated manner. While religious

and cultural dimensions have been part of many of these conicts, culture, and

more specically religion, proved to have the power to effectively harness and

enhance social cohesion and prevent the escalation of violence. However, the

contribution of religion as a tool of rapprochement has been often marginal-

ized, neglecting the impact that religious actors could have in supporting ef-

forts of building peace and stability. This paper analyses the interplay between

religious and policy actors through a unique initiative: the rst intergovern-

mental organization mandated to promote interreligious and intercultural dia-

logue to foster peace and understanding among communities of different faith

denominations. By showcasing some of KAICIID’s activities, the paper pre-

sents the relevance of interreligious dialogue both, on the grassroots as well as

on the international level.

146

ÁLVARO ALBACETE

2. bACkGround

With 84% of the 2010 world population dening itself as religious, the

impact religious actors can have in their communities to foster social cohesion

and peaceful coexistence remains exceptional. Recognizing the important role

religion holds, the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID) was founded in

2012 as a global advocate for interreligious and intercultural dialogue to foster

mutual respect, sustainable peace and social cohesion. Uniquely among inter-

governmental organizations, KAICIID is governed both, by the Council of

Parties comprised of governmental representatives of its Member States, and

by the Board of Directors, comprised of religious leaders from ve different

religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism). Through its

unique structure, the Centre fosters cooperation between religious communi-

ties and policy makers, which can create new, more inclusive solutions. The

diversity of the multi-religious governing Board provides active assurance

that the work carried out by the Centre is inclusively benecial for all denomi-

nations. With the support of its member governments, the Centre convenes

inuential stakeholders to collaborate and recognize their common goals and

methods. Recognizing the power of dialogue in building peace, the Centre

helps communities use dialogical methods to strengthen harmonious relations,

closing the divide created when religious identities are manipulated to engen-

der fear and hatred or justify exclusion.

Some of the methods adopted by the Centre include the creation of inter-

religious dialogue platforms, knowledge, and commitment that foster cooper-

ation in conict areas. By supporting international and national institutions in

using interreligious dialogue to work for positive change, the Centre works to

create and disseminate knowledge on interreligious dialogue to help achieve

peace and reconciliation.

Since the establishment of the Centre, the international landscape has

changed signicantly, both with regards to the geographical spread of con-

icts in which religion is manipulated to incite or justify violence, as well as

with regards to the tools, such as social media, which are being used to spread

hate messages. In this context agile yet structured action is required to address

the emerging challenges to peace. In particular, track-two and cultural diplo-

macy have arisen as relevant additions to the, at times, hard-lined diplomatic

efforts, which often only resulted in security-centered measures, disregarding

the core values and principles of spirituality.

147

KAICIID AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

3. why interreliGious diAloGue?

While the world has witnessed a global trend in the manipulation of re-

ligious identity to justify violence, it is important to note that religious actors

have been historically, and still are, instrumental in countering messages of in-

tolerance. During conict, religious leaders can play a crucial role in evoking

a common framework of beliefs and values to obtain support for non-violent

approaches in conict-resolution. Similarly, if they work with fellows from

different religious denominations, calling for compassion and empathy, which

stand at the core of all religions, they can increase individual and community

resilience in the face of tensions. This basic approach of emphasizing a set

of common positive values and morals that is shared by all religious or faith

groups, constitute the foundation for many interreligious peacebuilding activi-

ties. Recovery can take generations, long after the dust of conict settles. After

the last intervening state and international aid organizations have withdrawn,

it is often the religious leaders that are left holding the communities together.

On the other hand, practice frequently shows that religious actors have

limited resources and frameworks of action that would enable them to contrib-

ute to a wider peace agenda. They lack platforms and/or fora through which

they can communicate with other relevant actors (such as development and/or

aid agencies, policy-makers, civil society) to have a wider impact with long-

term sustainability. The nexus between religious leaders and policy makers,

in this context, remains crucial for the involvements of groups, which are

typically marginalized or left behind, into the social transformational process.

Overcoming this gap of trust and suspicion between these two stakeholders

(policy makers and religious agencies) is crucial step in paving the path to

constructively address conicts and challenges that have a religious dimen-

sion. Lack of coordination, duplication of efforts, and contradictory messages

are only few of the consequences of this gaps, especially in context of violent

conict areas.

In order to contribute to the solution, KAICIID has utilized partnerships

with intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations, as a ben-

ecial method to increase the impact of its work in helping religious leaders

prevent hate speech, incitement to violence and genocide – as well as with

faith-based organizations and NGOs. The relevance of international partner-

ships that promote the positive contributions of religious leaders was recog-

nized in the past years by international actors that shifted their focus towards

148

ÁLVARO ALBACETE

faith-based organizations and religious leaders, including them in cross-sec-

toral partnerships for peace. For example, within the framework of the United

Nations’ renewed focus on conict prevention and mediation, the constructive

participation of religious actors has been actively welcomed with the creation

of the UN Interagency task force on Religion and Development.

Against this background, KAICIID has specialized in serving as an inter-

national dialogue facilitator and interreligious dialogue catalyzer, using dia-

logue methodologies to convey messages of peace. KAICIID’s methodology

is based on the assumption that neither religious actors nor policy-makers

alone can effectively address the many conicts and challenges in which reli-

gious identity is being manipulated to justify violence. In order to bridge the

gap between these two sets of actors, KAICIID establishes, or supports the es-

tablishment of interreligious dialogue platforms, comprised of religious lead-

ers, representatives of civil society and other relevant stakeholders. Through

the interreligious dialogue platforms, religious leaders work together to agree

on common stances which allows them, in return, to work with policy-mak-

ers on issues such as development, youth engagement, media etc. Within the

framework of interreligious dialogue platforms, religious leaders receive

capacity-building trainings and the relevant know-how for working together

towards nding solutions to common concerns. This approach is motivated by

the belief that interreligious dialogue, combined with other efforts, can uphold

the basic human rights of members of the communities and strengthen the

social fabric in the affected societies.

The success of platforms is determined by the condence of all parties

that the dialogue will be fair, inclusive, open, sustained and safe. For these

conditions to be met, KAICIID invited by the national government agencies,

partners with non-partisan organizations, creating an environment conducive

to dialogue. KAICIID and its partners act neutrally and impartially, not pro-

moting specic solutions, but rather facilitating dialogue among involved ac-

tors. These institutional partnerships are crucial, both for attracting resources

and guaranteeing the necessary credibility of the overall dialogue process.

4. ACtion For ChAnGe

Since its foundation in 2012, the Centre works hard to enable coop-

eration between religious leaders and policymakers in the Arab region, the

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KAICIID AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Central African Republic, in Myanmar and Nigeria, where the Centre sup-

ports inclusive, interreligious platforms that help communities build trust

and bridge the divides that separate them. The initiatives in the Arab region

unite religious leaders in denouncing any justication of violence through

religion and in supporting the common citizenship of all. The rst network

of Muslim & Christian Religious Faculties and Institutes that was established

in the Arab World helps incorporate interreligious dialogue in their curricula.

The KAICIID-supported Interreligious Platform supports religious authori-

ties from Muslim and Christian institutions to advocate for the rights and in-

clusion of all communities in the Arab Region. The platform equips members

to combat hatred and sectarianism and promotes the fundamental rights and

dignity of all human beings based on the concept of common citizenship. The

platform also connects religious leaders with policy makers in the region to

advocate inclusive policies and give a stronger voice to marginalized com-

munities.

This initiative is combined with social media trainings, which provide

over 300 social media advocates in the Arab region the skills to push back

against online religious extremism and incitement. Aiming to further enhance

the capacity of religious activists and future religious leaders to promote co-

operation, the Fellows programme introduces interreligious dialogue to the

educators around the world who are training tomorrow’s religious leaders in

conict regions. These initiatives are conceptualized as capacity building for

peace and social cohesion, training young people, from scouts to young refu-

gees, to use dialogue to solve real-life challenges.

Collectively, it is important to determine how to empower leaders ready

to constructively engage in peace-building efforts and examine ways in which

we can, together, move away from violent conict and towards paths of peace.

Among the interreligious dialogue platforms supported by the Centre, is the

Muslim Jewish Leadership Council in Europe. Religious leaders and faith-

based organizations have communicated the need of a greater degree of un-

derstanding of how to approach and engage policymakers and KAICIID has

tailored its engagement with this set of stakeholders to support them. With an

understanding of policy frameworks, human rights, and sustainable develop-

ment, as well as practical skills such as the use of social media and the proto-

cols of advocacy, greater strides can be taken towards achieving the UNSDGs.

At the same time, policymakers need training on religious literacy, interreli-

gious dialogue and inclusion.

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ÁLVARO ALBACETE

Working to equip religious actors across all communities with the tools to

cooperate across intrareligious and interreligious lines and to aid policymak-

ers in their endeavor to overcome violent extremism, prevent further conict,

build bridges, foster coexistence in diversity and, in turn, strengthen commu-

nities, KAICIID actively strives to contribute to the transformation of socie-

ties affected by conict. When religious leaders and actors have the tools to

identify and overcome hate speech or incitement; when they work together as

equal partners in the effort to rebuild their communities; when they have the

support, they need to foster peace, share knowledge with policymakers and

international organizations and work together with them, then we have moved

one step closer to our goal.

In this context, signicant strides have been made over the past years in

the Central African Republic. The country has undergone a surge of violence

since March 2013. With almost 900 000 people forcefully displaced since

then, the crisis has become one of the worst humanitarian disasters of our

time according to UN reports. There are more than 460 000 CAR refugees

in neighboring countries and 436 000 are internally displaced. Intra-religious

and interreligious division affects the stability of the country, causing clashes

between and within the different religious communities and ethnic communi-

ties and weakening reconciliation potential. Due to the magnitude of this dis-

placement, the country risks becoming divided between a Muslim north and a

Christian south. According to various sources, Christians represent 80% of the

population (55% protestant, 25% Catholic) and Muslims approximately 15%.

The Bangui Forum on National Reconciliation conference was organized

in May 2015 by the transition government that led to the adoption of the Re-

publican Pact for Peace and Reconciliation. In October 2015, the UN Security

Council called “upon the international community to continue to support the

CAR by addressing critical priorities articulated by Central Africans during

the Bangui Forum on National Reconciliation” and “commended the joint

action of religious leaders in the CAR in pursuing intercommunal peace.”

Therefore, it became an imperative that international and local actors continue

to support dialogue, including between the religious leaders to pave the way

for peace and reconciliation.

The role of religious leaders in achieving peace in the country is crucial,

given their capacity to foster national efforts of reconciliation from within their

respective communities. To this end, KAICIID is advocating for the establish-

ment of operational and sustainable mechanisms to strengthen the capacity of

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KAICIID AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

the religious leaders (with an initial focus on the Muslim community) to pre-

vent violence and engage in interreligious dialogue for reconciliation. Through

its work, the Centre has focused on establishing inclusive mechanisms that

strengthen the capacity of the CAR religious community leaders to successful-

ly engage with each other, including an early warning mechanism to monitor,

mitigate & prevent interreligious violence in the conict areas. Furthermore,

together with partners, the Centre develops the capacity of religious actors to

conduct interreligious initiatives. This includes training Muslim leaders for

future intergroup cooperation with Christian leaders. Striving to offer innova-

tive approaches to building peace, KAICIID implements pilot initiatives in

targeted conict areas in partnership with members of the existing Interfaith

Platform and it provides technical and nancial support to the Interfaith Plat-

form to coordinate the activities of its members. A needs assessment study was

conducted to map issues as well as identify gaps that need to be addressed in

future. The Centre prides itself with adopted Vienna Action Plan, which com-

prises of a set of actions aiming to promote interreligious dialogue and which

was supported by representatives from the Muslim and Christian communities

as well as various governments. Imams representing the two main Muslim

groups agreed to unite and work together with Christians for peace constitut-

ing a rst step in addressing the issue of leadership within their community.

Conscious that a long-term engagement is necessary, the Centre remains com-

mitted to work with partners in order to support the Central African Republic

on its path towards peace, inclusiveness and stability.

Within the framework of activities in Africa, KAICIID developed unique-

ly-tailored initiatives to address the challenges Nigeria faces. With over 182

million inhabitants comprising over 500 ethnic groups (according to the 2015

census), Nigeria has an almost even split between Islam and Christianity. Ac-

cording to a recent UN report, Nigeria is projected to overtake the United States

as the third-most populous country in the world by 2050. Rising tensions along

religious, regional, ethnic and political fault lines have damaged intercommu-

nal relations in Nigeria, which are under even more pressure due to the lack

of sustained dialogue and a competition for available resources. Northeastern

and central Nigeria have witnessed an increase in violence by various groups,

including Boko Haram, trying to manipulate religious and ethnic identity in

Nigeria for political ends. These violent acts have threatened social cohesion in

this historically diverse and multi-religious society. KAICIID sees the consid-

erable potential of functioning dialogue platforms which leaders from different

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ÁLVARO ALBACETE

religious traditions can use to address these and other emerging issues. These

platforms can serve to combat growing intolerance and mistrust. The Centre

has solidied its role as a dialogue facilitator in Nigeria and laid the founda-

tions for sustainable interreligious dialogue through the establishment of dia-

logue spaces, capacity building, and support of local initiatives.

Recognizing the need for diverse and inclusive solutions to the conicts,

the Centre convenes religious leaders, policymakers, regional stakeholders

and experts from Nigeria in a series of intra-and interreligious meetings in

the Coordinate to Achieve (CtA) process. In order to foster collaboration, and

provide resources and support for local initiatives, the Centre works through

a three pillar approach: a) Interfaith Dialogue Forum for Peace; b) Support

for Local Initiatives and c) Strategic Partnerships. The Centre supported the

launch of the Interfaith Dialogue Forum for Peace (IDFP). The IDFP was the

result of consultations with over 80 stakeholders and local partners in order to

promote more effective and sustainable collaboration. As a locally owned, and

legally registered entity, IDFP works on the promotion of interreligious dia-

logue for peace in the country, bringing together religious and interreligious

actors, with international, governmental and civil society partners. The Forum

has succeeded in adopting an interreligious action plan focusing on the estab-

lishment of Interfaith Networks and the support of social cohesion, interfaith

education, the freedom of religion and the protection of holy sites, interfaith

exchanges and media sensitization, as well as countering hate speech. In each

of these areas, the Forum and its members have successfully implemented ac-

tivities, including visits to communities in Kaduna State, Plateau State, Taraba

State, Benue State, and Zamfara State affected by tensions between farming

and pastoralists groups, a high level intra-faith round table meeting on the de-

radicalization of extremist tendencies in Nigeria, resulting in a roadmap and a

consensus working document for further implementation by the Muslim com-

munity. The Centre also supports local and grassroots initiatives which foster

dialogue throughout the country. Through the grants scheme up to 20 grass-

roots organizations are supported each year, broadening our impact among

the Nigerian population. For example, funded by the Centre’s small grants

scheme, students from Kaduna Polytechnic University took part in a series of

workshops which taught skills in dialogue and challenging hate speech. Al-

though sometimes reluctant to get to know one another, Muslim and Christian

students built relationships after completing the programme, counting each

other as friends and committing to dialogue and interreligious solidarity.

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KAICIID AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

KAICIID is also actively involved in promoting interreligious dialogue

and cooperation in Myanmar, the second largest country in South-East Asia,

with around 56.8 million inhabitants and a country facing both political and

economic transition. It struggles with identity issues along ethnic and reli-

gious lines (with more than 135 recognized ethnic groups). A number of vi-

olent attacks target the Muslim community in various parts of the country,

particularly in the Rakhine State. A surge of violence erupted again in August

2017, which resulted in over 1000 people killed, according to the UN spe-

cial rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, while Médecins Sans Frontières

reported casualty numbers of 6700 people killed. The UNSG has called on

Myanmar authorities to end violence against the Rohingya. Following violent

tensions in this region in October 2016, the UN High Commissioner for Hu-

man Rights issued a report in 2017 which spoke of the “devastating cruelty”

deployed against the Rohingyas by Myanmar’s security forces; documenting

serious human rights violations. The newly elected government faces a huge

challenge in calibrating its political, policy and security responses to keep

violence under control. Negotiations for a national peace settlement with the

ethnic armed groups have yet to make any signicant progress. Although the

government argues that the Rohingya are illegal migrants from Bangladesh

and has made no real eff ort to provide them any formal legal status, recent

events show that it has started increasingly turning against the radical groups.

More than half a million Rohingya refugees have ed a violent offensive since

August 2017, with the UN repeatedly calling “to suspend military action, end

the violence, and uphold the rule of law”.

Against this complex backdrop, KAICIID and its local partner network,

the Peaceful Myanmar Initiative (PMI), a multi-religious network of religious

leaders and CSOs, are focusing on the development of dialogue activities as part

of local peace advocacy efforts, to revive the spirit of tolerance in the country.

KAICIID’s overall objective, as in other parts of the world where it is

active, is to promote interreligious dialogue, coexistence and reconciliation be-

tween the followers of the main religious traditions in the country. The main

methods of engagement include supporting and strengthening an inclusive and

sustainable national interfaith dialogue platform, training of religious and com-

munity leaders on interreligious dialogue, with a focus on using social media

as a space for dialogue and supporting local peacebuilding initiatives through

a small grants scheme, awareness raising campaigns and interfaith forums thus

initiating pilot activities through local partners also in Rakhine State.

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ÁLVARO ALBACETE

KAICIID prides itself in particular with the establishment and functioning

of the Peaceful Myanmar Initiative, a multi-religious and inclusive network

composed of around 50 prominent religious leaders from various faith tradi-

tions (Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Muslims) and civil society organiza-

tions (CSOs), who promote peaceful dialogue across Myanmar, including in

Rakhine State. PMI and its partners aim to serve as sustainable networks and

platforms. Through them, these Burmese-led activities aim to build bridges

between diverse religious, ethnic, political and regional communities.

5. PArtnershiPs

KAICIID’s external relations priorities are embedded in the Centre’s stat-

utory documents, which recognize the importance of building and sustaining

partnerships. The Centre’s commitment to multilateralism is a dening prin-

ciple of its core policy, as KAICIID’s work is carried out through, with, and

for, partners. Throughout the years, the Centre increased efforts to cooperate

with international partners, in order to prevent duplication of efforts, leverage

existing synergies, and focus on the implementation of existing formal coop-

eration agreements.

KAICIID attaches special importance to its cooperation with the UN

and building relations with relevant UN entities, in particular under the

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Centre contributes to the

SDGs through a multi-dimensional approach, drawing on its main areas of

expertise in the eld of interreligious and intercultural dialogue and focusing

on multi-stakeholder partnerships for implementation, which lies at the core

of KAICIID’s methodology, in line with SDG 17:

Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented

by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise,

technology and nancial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable

development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries. Encourage

and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, build-

ing on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships.

KAICIID developed a strategic approach to capitalize on the Centre’s

comparative advantages, as well as on new opportunities with regards to part-

nership with intergovernmental organizations. It works to strengthen links

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KAICIID AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

between religious actors and policymakers by building their capacity in inter-

religious dialogue for peace and social cohesion. The Centre partners with

UN entities, intergovernmental organizations, international nongovernmen-

tal organizations and governments. KAICIID aims at contributing to trans-

formative social change by empowering religious leaders and policymakers

to participate in dialogue for peace. KAICIID upholds the UN Declaration on

Human Rights, as well as the UNESCO Culture Conventions and their opera-

tional activities, which demonstrate how culture can help achieve the 2030

Agenda. In line with UNESCO’s approach to the 2030 Agenda, KAICIID

aims to contribute to peaceful societies and inclusion, through the enhance-

ment of fundamental freedoms and the strengthening of participatory systems

of dialogue towards the respect for cultural diversity and the promotion of

gender equality. KAICIID partners with the United Nations Alliance of Civili-

zations, United Nations Development Programme and others supporting local

communities to address challenges they face in volatile conict environments.

Through all its partnerships, the Centre works towards strengthening the

dialogue between religious actors and policy makers by providing an enabling

context for religious leaders to actively contribute to the strategic policy orien-

tation of intergovernmental organization. Experience has shown that religious

actors’ contributions represent an important factor in the success of peace and

social cohesion activities.

6. ConClusion

Religious leaders can play an important role in international peace agenda

when invited to participate in a respectful and inclusive manner. The coopera-

tion between religious leaders from different religious denomination as well

as their collaboration with policy-makers has been historically a sensitive one,

as reluctance and misperceptions created tension and alienation. This partner-

ship, nevertheless, provides a variety of opportunities for both religious lead-

ers and policy-makers to benet from the added value these stakeholders bring

to the table. While religious leaders can reach out to local communities and

positively shape the perceptions of the Other, policy-makers have the means

to support these initiatives and multiplying their positive effects. Neverthe-

less, when creating partnerships among religious leaders and between them

and policy-makers, it is important to take note of several factors.

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ÁLVARO ALBACETE

First, actors facilitating dialogue and cooperation between religious and

policy actors should work to safeguard the uniqueness of their standpoints

and the separate spheres of inuence. Often and unconsciously, policy-makers

try to change the attitudes of religious leaders, attempting to assimilate them

to the more secular/policy discourse, and vice versa, religious leaders expect

that policy-makers will change their attitude towards religion and accept the

language or discourse of moral values

Second, a systematization of these partnerships based on clear principles

and values, as well as the respect for the rights and responsibilities of each

actor shall be put in place. This can help dialogue facilitators manage the ex-

pectations and the feasibility of the outcomes.

Third, the institutionalization of systematic engagement between reli-

gious actors and policy makers is far more challenging that sporadic or ad-hoc

linkages that can be established around certain temporary issues or crisis. This

process of institutionalization requires a deeper and more comprehensive and

strategic planning on the two sides.

Fourth, the cooperation between religious leaders and policy makers can

have long-lasting results only when facilitated in a fair and inclusive manner.

Successive initiatives by the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID),

including statements by its multi-religious Board as well as engagement at

policymaking and thought leadership levels, are driven by the Centre’s deep

rooted concern over the hundreds of lives lost or destroyed by those seeking

to bypass the message of peace inherent in all religions in pursuit of twisted

ideologies and/or political ends.

As the only intergovernmental organization governed by religious repre-

sentatives and dedicated to the facilitation of dialogue between followers of

different religions and cultures, KAICIID’s mandate allows it to bridge the

gap between religious leaders and policy makers in order to advocate peace

and combat violent extremism. This approach stems from a belief that reli-

gious leaders and policy makers must work together in order to address the

many conicts and problems in which religious identity is manipulated to jus-

tify violence. Despite the numerous challenges that today’s world still faces,

KAICIID’s methodology is increasingly becoming interesting to international

stakeholders, who realize that building peace requires holistic policies and

inclusive methodologies.

157

SCHOLAS OCCURRENTES: YOUNG PEOPLE AND

INTERFAITH AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

mArtA simonCelli

Pope Francis explained at the closing of the World Congress of Catholic

Education in 2017 that:

Scholas seeks to open new horizons and harmonize the language of the

mind with the language of the heart and the language of the hands. Scholas is

teaching young people around the world to think, feel good and accompany in

doing, so that the child, the young person, may think what he feels and what he

does; may feel what he thinks and what he does; may do what he feels and what

he thinks. Scholas builds the culture of encounter and inclusion, and harmoni-

cally remakes the educational pact (Pope Francis, 2017).

From Scholas we propose a positive vision, inviting young people to re-

ect on their own being in relation to the other. The basis of Scholasʼ educa-

tional experiences are the following premises: “All people are a ‘yes’” (Pope

Francis, 2017).

Whenever we talk about interfaith and intercultural dialogue, we cannot

put aside what lies beneath this desire for self-knowledge, recognition and

exchange. Deep down, talking about dialogue means conceiving the human

being in himself or herself and in his or her relationship with others in a cer-

tain way.

1. Discourse of Pope Francis at the closing ceremony of the World Congress for Catholic Educa-

tion, 2017.

2. Discourse of Pope Francis at headquarters inauguration of the Pontical Scholas Occurrentes,

June 2017.

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MARTA SIMONCELLI

As evidenced in the history of humankind, different conceptions exist and

coexist, and some of them do not understand the otherness in terms of mutual

recognition and dialogue.

Everything that concerns human beings, their creation and their way of

comprehending the world arises from a worldview about oneself and the oth-

er. Likewise, in order to talk about interfaith and intercultural dialogue, it is

important to pick up the underlying dimension of “person” again, that is, how

we interpret the encounter between the different ways of being that exist in the

world, expressed also in religions and cultures.

We might begin with the premise that “all people are a ‘yes’”, a key

provided by Pope Francis for the interpretation of the human person. This

premise also poses an interesting anthropological perspective, regardless of

whether we know their personal history, by which we may have a glimpse of

how this yes has to do with creating a place for those excluded and marginal-

ized by a society that says no to them.

If we consider the phrase with its word order, we nd the rst word that

directs the gaze the way of understanding reality: all. This word contains,

precisely, everything: the totality of continents, countries, cultures, faiths and

religions that we know. To say all means trying to encompass and include the

diversity of ways of being existing on Earth.

If we add to that the word people and say all people, we will see how

that all embraces the human person; that is, the all that contains the culture,

the diversity of entities called “people”, with dignity in themselves. Thus, the

Pope is saying: all people, which is the same as saying people all around, in

this inherent interaction between human being and culture.

All people are. Saying that people are means coming to terms with their

existence in a certain way. The verb to be establishes a relationship of belong-

ing to something (in this case, the world). Based on this perspective, no person

is-not. On the contrary, this phrase is all about understanding that everyone

must be and exist.

Lastly, all people are a “yes”, perhaps means to say “yes” to everything

that was exposed before: to all of the people in their particular (diverse) way

of being and inhabiting this world.

To point out that all people are a “yes” is to set off on the basis of equal-

ity, to propose that nothing is left uncontemplated, to understand that, in order

to speak about dialogue, it is fundamental to conceive the other as a “yes” and

all others as a valid “yes”.

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SCHOLAS OCCURRENTES: YOUNG PEOPLE AND INTERFAITH AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

With this anthropological premise, we may make a breakdown of the way

in which we look at human beings, tracing a both educational and vital path.

Pope Francis, in the same speech, also invites us to reect on the meaning of

life and of people in themselves: “discover that they mean something, just as

a pebble has a meaning”.

“To have a meaning” in the Western rationalist world is not saying little.

On the contrary, it implies granting the human person a standing that contains

a sense of being, and that, thus, the stated meaning is genuine and not subject

to debasing or disposal.

Now, delving into the sense of being, which is so often emphasized by

Pope Francis as a spiritual guide, he retrieves the importance of interiority:

“Finding oneʼs identity is a path: a path of dialogue, a path of reection, a path

of interiority”.

That is to say that the rst dialogue to be held is with ourselves. But it

does not end there: being alone in a world where others exist is practically

impossible. Which is why he continues as follows:

[… ] each of us has their own uniqueness, their own treasures, and the challenge

lies there […] I must seek my own uniqueness, my own treasures, and share them

with others because I have a meaning, I mean something […] What’s the purpose

of having a meaning? To give something (Pope Francis, 2019).

1. A “yes” to Give

“In this society which is very much used to excluding, selecting and at-

tacking, […] Scholas does not. All of us are a ‘yes’, for themselves and others,

a ‘yes’ to give.

Ontologically speaking, and according to the conception that we have

already mentioned at the beginning, the human being is a “yes” that –he adds–

is donated, i.e., it is a “yes” that relates, that has the ability to give itself to

others and to the otherness.

Being in relation sets out the great challenge of exchanging, coexisting

and sharing. About this, Pope Francis says:

3. Message of Pope Francis to the #STOPCYBERBULLYINGDAY marathon participants | Scho-

las Talks 24 hs, June 2019.

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MARTA SIMONCELLI

It is up to you to discover your meaning in life, the way you are, your

potentials, and the way you give that meaning to others, how you share it.

What’s the point of a life which is not shared with others? It goes to a mu-

seum. And I don’t think you want to end up in a museum, do you? (Pope

Francis 2017).

In a life which is shared and acknowledges the other as a gift, there is

a relationship, something to give and, therefore, something to receive; a re-

lationship that “is inclusive, shakes hands, gives hugs, does not attack and

recognizes that no person is a `noʼ” (Pope Francis, 2017).

Our collective interfaith and intercultural history has plentiful of ex-

amples of rejection of the other. One interesting example of a “no” present

amongst young people was noted in the Scholas videoconference on Bullying

in June 2019:

[… ] a very easy way not to not make this journey is to attack or diminish the

identity of others. This is where bullying is born. Bullying is a phenomenon of

self-compensation, of self-appreciation, not of nding oneself but of diminish-

ing the other in order to feel superior. It is learning to look down on others and

wrong. Keep in mind that it is only valid for one person to look at another from

top to bottom when helping the other to get up. Otherwise, it is invalid (Pope

Francis, 2019).

From these examples, we may show the conception of being in relation

mentioned at the beginning, as well as how our own identity is built as a re-

ection of the otherness (although, in this case, by obscuring the identity of

others).

“To go out to meet one another” –says Pope Francis at Scholas IV Con-

gress– means understanding that in this being-relationship there is an other

who builds that being. It is the other who gives back the root of our own self

and makes us understand and know ourselves.

For this reason, at the back of this dynamic and dialectical relationship

between beings, Pope Francisʼ call to be “on the way out” unfolds, which, in

4. Discourse of Pope Francis to Scholas’ youngsters at Scholas Headquarters in the Vatican City,

June 2017.

5. Discourse of Pope Francis to Scholas’ youngsters at Scholas Headquarters in the Vatican City,

June 2017.

6. Message of Pope Francis to the #STOPCYBERBULLYINGDAY marathon participants | Scho-

las Talks 24 hs, June 2019.

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SCHOLAS OCCURRENTES: YOUNG PEOPLE AND INTERFAITH AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

terms of dialogue, implies just a little more: it suggests that, starting at the

“yes” to all people (diversity of cultures, religions, economic backgrounds),

all individuals reect our own ego, submit it to reection and uplift it, em-

brace the diversity present in humankind and make us nd one another and,

even more so, ourselves.

2. identity As A work oF Art

I would like to thank you for letting life tell you a new chapter at each step.

Don’t be afraid of that: of bringing yourselves to mixing your languages, open-

ing your history and allowing others to rewrite it without forsaking it; of what

is different and unknown; maintaining always that diversity and being more and

more authentic at the same time, turning that identity –that sense of belonging

that you have received– into a work of art. That is what I wish for you (Pope

Francis, 2018).

The message of Pope Francis begins by saying that “the word `identityʼ

is not an easy one”. Undoubtedly, there is a myriad of reections and concep-

tions surrounding that word, which holds in its very signier deep meaning

about everything we have been proposing about being, the other and other-

ness (world), and the relationship between everything involved in cultures,

religions, social organizations, etc.

However, in relation to this, the Holy Father adds something very im-

portant about “identity”, not only with the question as to who I am but also

explaining that “this question is dovetailed to the question of the meaning of

our own lives. Who am I and what is the meaning of my life?”.

And he adds to this: “But caution: this is not a question to get rid of or to

answer hastily. This is a question we should always keep in mind and open,

close to us: `Who am I?ʼ”.

The dynamic nature of a work of art as a unique and beautiful creation

which is never nished, that appears unexpectedly and that gives rise to an ex-

pression of being, is the most appropriate image to understand the complexity

of “identity”. As Pope Francis said, “identity” is about a path, about a question

7. Message of Pope Francis to the participants of the World Youth Encounter organized by World

ORT and Scholas Occurrentes. Buenos Aires. October 2018.

162

MARTA SIMONCELLI

that remains and is asked repeatedly throughout life in the encounter with oth-

ers. Thatʼs why he continues that:

So as to prevent the identity from denying differences, it needs a constant

encounter with the other. It needs dialogue, it needs growing from each encoun-

ter. […] There are no abstract identities. Identities are not motionless. Each of

us should ask ourselves again: `Who am I?ʼ, and rebuild the path. Letʼs grow in

the path, with dialogue, with a sense of belonging, with hope. That way, we will

enrich ourselves more and more every day (Pope Francis, 2018).

For this, during the videoconference held this year with the young people

of Scholas, Pope Francis introduced the key of this “encounter”, and said to

us: “The only way is the way of dialogue, of sharing, coexisting, listening to

the other, taking the time to walk this path together, taking the time because

time builds relationships” (Pope Francis, 2018).

3. the oriGin And eXPerienCe oF sCholAs, An eduCAtion in the Culture oF

the enCounter

At the onset of the XXI century in Argentina, where Jorge Bergoglio

(Pope Francis) sat as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, a deep social, political and

economic crisis prevailed, causing death and poverty, and with a population

gathered under a common cry demanding “Throw them all out”. In the midst

of chaos, despair and indifference, Bergoglio brought together educators José

María del Corral and Enrique Palmeyro and tasked them with the mission of

listening to the hearts of young people, since it is only from that place, from

their pain, that a new culture could emerge.

Then came the formation of the rst group of students from Catholic,

Jewish, Muslim and Evangelical schools, both public and private, from all

over the city. These young people started thinking about this challenging so-

cial reality, and asserted that their pain was mainly caused by the educational

system, since it proposed an education that was not close to their lives. How-

ever, this group of teenagers decided that they would not surrender to this

8. Message of Pope Francis to the participants of the World Youth Encounter organized by World

ORT and Scholas Occurrentes. Buenos Aires. October 2018.

9. Message of Pope Francis to the participants of the World Youth Encounter organized by World

ORT and Scholas Occurrentes. Buenos Aires. October 2018.

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SCHOLAS OCCURRENTES: YOUNG PEOPLE AND INTERFAITH AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

reality: they created a bill which climbed all the way to the City Legislature

and which was unanimously voted and became Act no. 2169 (Buenos Aires,

Educational City), summoning several social agents to the educational task.

This initial group of 70 students grew to the point that, by the end of the

year, 7000 teenagers were already participating and, unknowingly, became the

origin of Scholas.

Today, twenty years after its rst experience in Buenos Aires and six years

after its early steps in the world, Scholas is constituted as the International

Organization of Pontical Law, based in Argentina, Vatican City, Colombia,

Spain, Haiti, Italy, Mexico, Mozambique, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal and

Romania, with its network in 190 countries, connecting more than 500 000

educational centers and public and private educational networks of all faiths,

bringing together more than one million children and young people from all

over the world. There are many programs and initiatives that have emerged

from this seed rst sown in Buenos Aires. All of them aim at generating en-

counters between the diversity of realities, social classes and religions. And

from these off shoots, Pope Francis and the Scholas community have found

educational keys to dialogue and the culture of the encounter.

4. eduCAtinG in beAuty (PoPe FrAnCis, 2019)

One of the keys of this education for the culture of the encounter has to

do with giving back to young people and adults that which is ever-present in

childhood: a sense of awe. “Today we educate on the basis of reason. We pass

on certainties which have hindered our sense of transcendence, the doubt that

gives way to belief and awe” (Pope Francis, 2018).

Awe is the ability to be affected by the reality that surrounds us. It is a

movement that leads to understanding the other as a stranger, and that brings

about curiosity, inquiries.

Now, this awe that implies a glance at what surrounds us in the way we

have been suggesting, entails a way of understanding this encounter. Pope

Francis says: “As educators, we have to sense a path that strips our eyes in

10. Message of Pope Francis to the #STOPCYBERBULLYINGDAY marathon participants | Scho-

las Talks 24 hs, June 2019.

11. Discourse of Pope Francis at the Youth Pre-Synod, March 2018.

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MARTA SIMONCELLI

order to open up to the mystery of the otherness and to that unique –and, there-

fore, beautiful– charm within us all” (Pope Francis, 2018).

When awed, children discover the beauty in the world. In the same line,

when encountering others, the key proposed by Pope Francis is to empty our-

selves so as to become amazed by this new other, source of mystery, and, in

this encounter, nd its beauty, as whenever we discover a ower we had never

seen before. “To take away the amazement is to remove the ability to contem-

plate beauty and to open up to the mystery of the otherness” (Pope Francis,

2018).

Therefore, educating in awe and in beauty will imply opening up to what

is different and understanding that the mystery of the other means beauty, and

not rejection or violence.

5. redisCoverinG PlAy As An eduCAtionAl eXPression (PoPe FrAnCis, 2018)

Pope Francis has repeatedly mentioned the limitations of traditional edu-

cation developed today in most countries. One of the many issues he addresses

is that “Education is not merely information, it is creativity and play” (Pope

Francis, 2014).

While playing, we realized through young people how to start from par-

ity, from equality. Any free play, typical of infants, always invites us to cre-

ate possible (or impossible) worlds; and Scholas has discovered that, most of

time, the answers to the problems affecting young people and the world may

be generated from there.

By living in a culture where everything is exchange, business, barter, a

culture where everything has a utilitarian purpose, playing is the call to return

to the world of gratuity, where, in the absence of utilitarian goals or purposes,

our being appears in its fullest expression. Playing is the possibility of sens-

ing oneself and the other again as a gift and to give thanks for it: “In a liquid

world without roots, the real game is always lost: the free play. The ability of

the children we see in the eld who are able to put together a football team,

12. Discourse of Pope Francis at the Youth Pre-Synod, March 2018.

13. Discourse of Pope Francis at the Youth Pre-Synod, March 2018.

14. Discourse of Pope Francis at the Youth Pre-Synod, March 2018.

15. Pope Francis Message for the Interreligious Match for Peace, September 2014.

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SCHOLAS OCCURRENTES: YOUNG PEOPLE AND INTERFAITH AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

use two sticks representing the goal and a free goalkeeper who moves forward

and scores” (Pope Francis, 2019).

As mentioned above, these educational perspectives converge today in

programs that seek to generate this encounter from the diversity of each one,

and that leave us testimonies of young participants, such as those we share

below.

6. TheFeasToFgaThering:scholasciTizenshiP

“We need to consider the feast as a human expression of the celebration

of meaning” (Pope Francis, 2017).

Scholas Citizenship was born as a replica

of that rst experience shared with the youngsters from Buenos Aires. It was

the founding experience of Scholas whereby around two hundred and four

hundred young people from different public, private, secular and religious

schools from the same community gathered at one place for six days. The ex-

perience proposed a journey in which the youngsters started by choosing two

issues that affected them in their social reality, and later delved into them and

undertook to create projects.

This has been experienced over the last four years by more than 25 thou-

sand young people from countries as diverse as: Paraguay, Colombia, Mexico,

Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, United Arab

Emirates, Israel, Palestine, Cuba, United States, Italy, Spain, Portugal and

Mozambique.

In this “feast of gathering” –as Pope Francis calls it–, young people live

the vision of the human person that we have been describing. According to

Patricia, a student participant of Scholas Citizenship in Madrid (Spain): “(The

program) was a way to escape our environment and share. Diversity is enrich-

ing, and sharing is understanding. We could see that there is a world beyond

our neighborhood. And that worried and concerned us”.

Generating a common space for these youngsters, where diversity is pro-

claimed and the problems of their reality may be approached is the rst step

of Scholas Citizenship. One of the rst sensations in this regard, which we

16. Pope Francis in response to a to a question from Scholas at the Youth Pre-Synod, March 2019.

17. Pope Francis Message at the Scholas Chair Congress at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

July 2017.

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MARTA SIMONCELLI

have seen throughout these years, is the ability of young people to go beyond

differences. It is they themselves who quickly embody this “yes” to all: “All

of us are different but equal at the same time” (Pascuale, student participant of

Scholas Citizenship in Rome).

At the beginning of the day, a space called “re-creation” summons all

young people to be themselves by means of games. It is a moment based on

listening to each personʼs uniqueness, encouraging them to be themselves.

The re-creation invites to recreate. It is where young people express them-

selves artistically through dance and music, play on the basis of improvisation

and open up to whatever happens, sharing the uniqueness that each one brings

with their culture and history.

At this rst stage, the feast of the encounter is what reigns, and the stars

are the youngsters. “Scholas was a `yesʼ in the midst of many `noʼsʼ that

separated us. And it generated a space of trust that awoke in us what each

brought with ourselves: singing, dancing, poetry, thousands of things that in

this space of trust we could show as our passions and work as a team” (Es-

tefanía, young participant of Scholas Citizenship in Buenos Aires). “First of

all, Scholas joined us, as we attend schools of different religions, private and

public. Scholas opened for me a space to have the courage to share my poetry”

(Lucas, participant of Scholas Citizenship in La Matanza, Argentina).

During the re-creation activity, we saw how young people feel engaged

by the look of the other participants. It becomes an almost sacred space for

them, where each one is valued and accepted by the rest. “It helped us see our

worth and our relevance in the society. I’m certain that Scholas has developed

another meaning within us” (Vedenson, Haiti, participant of Scholas Citizen-

ship).

This is how young people have taught us what interfaith and intercultural

dialogue means: through the way they live such dialogue between them, from

that rst experience in Buenos Aires to each of the Scholas Citizenship experi-

ences:

I love this program because I can express myself and be myself, I can see

what happens to others, what they suffer, I can support the one beside me and

not just look at myself and my actions. I have met many friends from different

places, from different schools, with different opinions. What makes us friends

is that we are here with the motivation to come and learn from each other. I

would love everyone to be able to feel the same as I do right now because I

have met different people and been able to discuss what is happening and give

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SCHOLAS OCCURRENTES: YOUNG PEOPLE AND INTERFAITH AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

them a solution. Although I am from another religion –I am Jewish–, I love Pope

Francisʼ idea of uniting us all and creating an environment in which there are no

differences, and where we may all realize that we are equal. Scholas, to me, is

union” (Janet Cohen, participant of Scholas Citizenship in Metepec, Mexico).

Then, it is from this rst moment, where mutual recognition reigns

amongst the children, that the focus is placed on working with the issues cho-

sen. In Scholas, and based on the perspective of Pope Francis, the starting

point is always play and re-creation, and the unity and creativity with which

youngsters work on their realities arise from there: “We realized that, together,

we can make a difference. A different reality can only be built if we work to-

gether” (Alessandra, participant of Scholas Citizenship in Dubai). “We have

listened to each other and learned to work as a team” (Vanessa, participant of

Scholas Citizenship of Barranquilla).

That is how the feast of diversity takes place amongst youngsters, and

it is they who show in every experience how working together is possible:

“This harmonious space was generated by dialogue and the expression of each

one of us. Neither race, religion nor economy is relevant if we stand together

against the issues that affect us as young people” (Samantha, participant of

Scholas Citizenship in Mexico).

We came into contact with people from various social classes, with multiple

opinions and a diversity of physical abilities. It is very enriching to be able to ex-

change experiences and acknowledge in ourselves and in others that we had the

same hopes. Listening more and taking into account each other’s differences so

that thoughts are built together (Julia, Brazilian, participant of the World Youth

Encounter in Jerusalem).

Apart from that, in a transversal way, this experience also includes the

invitation to young people who want to approach the problem chosen through

art (music or painting). Art, like any game, frees life, allows life to be more

“life”; it helps the rock cease to be a rock and become a temple or a sculpture.

In art there is room for creation of possible worlds together, that is why it is

always present in the education of Scholas: “Through this mural, we can make

the young people of today see that although art is not within our schools, it

is still present within us.” (Giovanni, participant of Scholas Citizenship in

Rome).

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MARTA SIMONCELLI

To me, art has always been one of the ways of thinking, a way of expressing

oneself, a way of living life and a way of spreading knowledge as well. And what

better way to break society’s problems through knowledge and its expansion?

With art we can pass on ideas, messages. And that can help us solve many things.

As we are doing right now” (David, participant of Scholas Citizenship in Lima).

The approach to education proposed by Scholas is based on this experi-

ence with young people. Not only because they are the protagonists of the

spaces, but also since –as argued by Pope Francis in his anthropology of the

other– these “others” reect the image of what is done and make us self-

recognize ourselves:

Scholas suggests a more open education, based on our passions, on play, on

thinking, on achieving more, growing and learning from what you like. Nobody

says that learning has to be only about sitting down, picking up your book, listen-

ing to a talk, going to your house and doing what you have to do. You don’t learn

that way. You really learn when you are passionate about something and you look

for ways to grow through it: art, play, thought or whatever you like. That’s what

it is about, that from these branches you can learn, grow and educate yourself,

which is what matters at the end of the day (Sergio, participant of Scholas Citi-

zenship in Madrid).

Lastly, in each experience proposed by Scholas there is always a moment

where we try to grasp the meaning created in the encounter. To put in words

and in language what happens to us in the encounter with the other and with

otherness. It is a space where we take our time to think, not rationally, but

passionately, about what happens around us. By focusing on letting oneself be

affected by what is happening, participants are always invited to take a mo-

ment and write. This space is called “Whatʼs up?”, and it has to do with what

happened within the young participants. These testimonies arise from this ac-

tivity, and Scholas always uses them to reect about its educational work:

On the rst day of Scholas, I had no idea what to expect. Iʼd heard that

we would be solving problems in our community, but nothing else. I do a lot of

programs and internships and they are always serious. We are treated as adults,

and we’re expected to conduct ourselves professionally. I’ve spent years trying

to trick the world into thinking that I know what I’m doing, and that I am capable

of handling anything that is thrown in my way. Through these programs, I’ve

learned how to look and act the part. I polish and polish myself, but I’ve never

felt this condence and knowing of my heart. I expected a serious Scholas. This

is not what I got. I experienced a carefree Scholas. An honest and open Scholas.

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SCHOLAS OCCURRENTES: YOUNG PEOPLE AND INTERFAITH AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

I didnʼt know what was going on. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, or gure

out what was happening. Logic wasnʼt our government here. For a while, this

bewildered me. Then, I had an epiphany: Scholas is only understood when you

stop trying to understand it. Scholas is a feeling. Scholas is Valentina, Andres,

Nanda, Alvin. Scholas is dance, parties, and solving serious issues. Scholas is the

ability to view the world openly, as a child does. Iʼve nally understood that to be

a child is not a bad thing. I’m forever grateful for this time (Marina, participant

of Scholas Citizenship in Miami).

Time is not important. Never has silence had such voice. Only a little is

enough, a look, a smile, that incredibly possesses you every time you see it. Noth-

ing else matters. In the perfume of music, we instantly become brothers. Each

with their way of being. Its culture, its history. And everything always moves

together and creates something bigger, supernatural. Something that exceeds the

difference. A great “us” (Vincenzo, participant of Scholas Citizenship in Naples).

7. the Common house

The image of the common house has given us a path to reect on our

Earth and its care. But this idea helps us understand the depth of the perspec-

tive on the other posed by Pope Francis. In this image of the common house,

we are all included under the same roof, in the same human family.

Starting from this rst experience with the young participants, Scholas

has, throughout the years, generated this encounter between teachers, schools,

chairs, universities, educational systems and governments. Many and diverse

are the experiences reached under this perspective; but a particularly moving

one in the reection on interfaith and intercultural dialogue was the “Interreli-

gious Citizenship Encounter”, the interfaith world summit organized together

with the Truman Institute that took place in July 2017 in the Hebrew Univer-

sity of Jerusalem.

This Encounter summoned 75 young people from Israel, Palestine, Spain,

Mexico, Argentina, Kenya, Burundi, Congo and Brazil, in addition to the par-

ticipation –thanks to the Scholas Chairs program– of 70 academics from 41

universities in Africa, Latin America, Europe, North America and Asia and

major religious from the three Abrahamic religions.

The summit took place over four days in which youngsters were able to

share and express their views on the problems present in their own countries

and get to know the issues affecting others:

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MARTA SIMONCELLI

It was very interesting to know problems from other countries, since here

we are very involved in our problem due to living in such a complicated area. I

never knew how blind I was about these problems and places. I appreciate being

able to experience this in Scholas. I leave Scholas with curiosity, wondering

about so many things. I want to look further, visit these places, keep my friend-

ship with the people I’ve met here, and tell everyone around me about this. I

would recommend this experience to any human being” (Adam, from Palestine,

participant of the Interreligious Citizenship Encounter).

In the Scholas experience, starting from the yes to all, we nd the keys

to dialogue, opening our gaze towards the other and “reaching outside our-

selves”. Even more, as in Adamʼs experience, the possibility of having this

type of encounters puts our own truth, our own identity, into perspective.

From the experience of generating these spaces, the culture of the encoun-

ter is gradually being generated, as so desired by Scholas and Pope Francis.

I was able to meet lots of people here, especially the Palestinians, who live

so close to me and I never had the opportunity to meet. It was a very revealing

experience. I learned that I have to look at everything from another perspective. I

thought that Israel had the worst problems with the conict between Israelis and

Palestinians, but I discovered that there is a civil war in Congo (Niri, from Israel,

participant of the Interreligious Citizenship Encounter).

On the other hand (and as in each experience), art helped to create the ex-

perience of bonding beyond language and culture. At the closing of the sum-

mit, the participants presented the murals and the songs that they had worked

on together over those 4 days:

Art and music express freedom, and you can say how you feel and represent

it through dancing, singing, painting or any way you want. You can nd some-

thing in common with others that can start a relationship. This has changed my

life, because I can appreciate what I have and what I can give. This is a unique

experience (Ignacio, from Spain, participant of the Interreligious Citizenship

Encounter).

Lastly, at the close of the summit, the video message of Pope Francis and

his words gave a framework not only to this experience, but to the entire edu-

cational task of Scholas as the key to interfaith and cultural dialogue:

At this time, young people and adults from Israel, Palestine and other parts

of the world, from different nationalities, faiths and realities, all breathe the same

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SCHOLAS OCCURRENTES: YOUNG PEOPLE AND INTERFAITH AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

air, all step on the same land, our common home. The stories are many, everyone

has their own. There are as many stories as people, but life is one only. That is

why I want to celebrate these days lived there in Jerusalem, because you your-

selves, from your differences, achieved unity. No one taught that to you. You

lived it. You were encouraged to look into each other’s eyes, you were encour-

aged to strip your eyes, and this is essential for an encounter to occur.

In the nakedness of the gaze there are no answers, there is openness. Open-

ness to everything else that is not me. In the nakedness of the gaze we become

permeable to life. Life does not pass us by. It crosses us and moves us, and that

is passion. Once we are open to life and others, to those I have beside me, the

encounter takes place and, in that encounter, we create a meaning. We all have a

meaning. We all have a meaning in life. None of us is a ‘no’. We are all a ‘yes’.

(…) We need the feast as a human expression of the celebration of meaning.

Then, we discover the deepest feeling we may experience. A feeling that exists

in us for and in spite of everything. This feeling is gratitude.

The education that opens us to the unknown, which takes us to that place

where the waters have not yet divided. Open-minded. In other words, free from

judgments that block us, so as to, from there, dream and look for new paths.

Hence, we adults cannot take away from our children and young people the abil-

ity to dream, or to play, which in a way is daydreaming. If we do not let the child

play, it is because we do not know how to play, and if we do not know how to

play, we do not understand gratitude nor gratuity nor creativity (Pope Francis,

2017).

8. And, in the end… everythinG Finds meAninG

In a world this big and this complex, talking about diversity and dialogue

may be difcult. However, they exist, and we increasingly nd small beacons

that help the human community to glimpse a path of mutual recognition.

To conclude, we return to the words of Pope Francis followed by a

“Whatʼs up?” by a young girl from Argentina. The nal invitation, together

with the Scholas community, is to meditation and reection about ourselves,

about our being in relationship, about others and about what interfaith and

intercultural dialogue means in depth (to us).

18. Pope Francis Message at the closing ceremony of the Scholas Citizenship Interreligious Encoun-

ter at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, July 2017.

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MARTA SIMONCELLI

Don’t be afraid to dialogue. Each of us has something to give to others.

Each of us has something good to give to others. Each of us needs to receive

something good from others. Dialogue makes us equal, (…) it makes us equal on

the journey. We are all travelers, all equal. We all travel, but all of us different,

but all of us in harmony. Gamble on dialogue. Gamble on journeying together.

Gamble on the patience of listening to others. Then there will be true peace, and

that same true peace will cause you to discover your own dignity (Pope Francis,

2019).

Locked in a magical world, harboring dreams and releasing them all to-

gether. Filling us with magic and peace. Feeling nally heard. Sharing our lives,

not those lived, but those felt. Releasing heavy loads and being free of past dis-

tresses. Trying not to change the world but starting a new one. A new world we

did not know but we dreamed of. And in the end… everything nds meaning

(Dai, participant of Scholas Citizenship, Argentina).

19. Message of Pope Francis to the #STOPCYBERBULLYINGDAY marathon participants | Scho-

las Talks 24 hs, June 2019.

173

THE RECOGNITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND

ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE CULTURE OF

ENCOUNTER

lourdes de miGuel sÁez

1. introduCtion

The structure and contributions of this text focus on some reections

and concerns that do not seek to make use of a rhetorical discourse, but to

review the recent history in order to rediscover and trace the true founda-

tions of a culture of peace and encounter starting with the recognition of

Human Rights.

In this chapter we will analyze how Human Rights t into the culture of

encounter and if the efforts for its observance and recognition can become its

promoters, starting from a common origin on the fringes of cultural, religious

or social connotations and beyond any discourse and particular interest.

In addition, we will stop to identify what are the social and political chal-

lenges, necessary to open the path of dialogue that destroys existing prejudic-

es, and how the Catholic Church, defender and promoter of a culture of peace

in human relations, can rescue and renew a world affected by an indescribable

identity crisis, appealing, fundamentally, to the integral development of the

human being.

We ask, therefore, what is the degree inuence in favor of the recognition

of Human Rights and to what extent can it constitute the prelude and precur-

sor to achieve a culture of encounter, where the person is placed in the center

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LOURDES DE MIGUEL SÁEZ

and heart of all the projects and institutions, with the aim of overcoming the

barriers of selshness and personal interests.

2. the eduCAtion in the humAn dimension As bAsis For A Culture oF PeACe

It passes unnoticed by no-one that in our current society there is a very

serious and worrying gap between technical and moral, cultural and social

advances, where the human being, it is true, has less and less needs and yet he

feels an immense dissatisfaction, having access to the results of a progress he

has generated, and which remains a good that is not distributed on an equal

basis among all subjects.

We prosper developing activities that are increasingly articial and move

away from the essence of a human being, from his identity and the aspects that

dene him, such as honesty, trust, authenticity and moral rectitude. And inter-

estingly, man becomes less and less important in this evolution, despite being

the creator of all these inventions and becoming the protagonist of that progress.

Voltaire said: “we are responsible for what we do but also for what we

donʼt do”. Well then, the human being has to be aware of the responsibility

that also implies assuming certain knowledge. And when in emotive events,

in anniversaries of universal and constitutional declarations of Human Rights,

entire populations echo the promulgation of that series of rights and freedoms,

which has been known and studied already since school

and so is believed

learned, that is where we must start our reection.

When we relate with others, we are developing a unique opportunity for

humanizing ourselves. And by humanizing our relationships we are fostering

a climate of peace and prosperity. Peace is the absence of conict and when

conict does not exist it is because respect prevails. But on the horizon of our

lives, this vision is always present as an ideal and while it is true that we all

work to fulll and put it into practice, there is still a long way to go.

There are many actors responsible for the promotion of peace, such as

States, public and private entities, and even citizens themselves. For that rea-

son, and although the recognition of a right implies the duty to build and

maintain it, any of these interveners, in isolation or altogether, could break the

peace either by action or by omission.

It is true that the issue of Human Rights deals with a reasonable utopia

that depends on the effort of each person to become a reality. But certainly,

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THE RECOGNITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE CULTURE...

the fundamental problem does not consist in recognizing Human Rights, but

in putting them into practice, for in truth, for a human right to exist, it is only

needed that a right represents a value whose universal dimension is unequivo-

cally recognized. Therefore, it is found that its violation takes place in both

poor and rich countries, and perhaps in the latter, the diversication of viola-

tion is greater, adopting new forms that arise and are established in the society

with the acquiescence and passivity of many. But the injustice is also sown

in more developed countries and extends like a scourge that seems cannot be

eradicated.

Thus, it is necessary to insist on this issue in those forums where the

new and young generations are present, such as at the University, a necessary

space where must be forged the knowledge and recognition of Human Rights

in order to achieve a culture of peace and encounter. This area, especially, is

the most propitious to tackle any eagerness to belittle the importance or under-

estimate the reality of others, as it could trigger episodes of fundamentalisms

of a political, religious or ideological nature. It should be recalled that the

imposition of oneʼs own truth arouses a hatred and an irrational confrontation

that greatly hinders the work of understanding and the perspective of peace.

Therefore, the concern of Pope Francis throughout his Ponticate to

achieve the culture of encounter hangs, in turn, on the educational structures

and programs, highlighting that “an education that favors the weaving of civil

society (civilized or civic) is necessary. That education is a place of encounter

and common efforts, where we learn to be a society, where the society learns

to be a solidarity society. We have to learn new ways to build the city of men”.

In the family context rst, and in the school afterwards or in parallel form,

it is where children and young people must nd the rst sources of infor-

mation and the main learning references in order to relate through tolerance,

respect and dialogue. Therefore, educational practice must propitiate learn-

ing elements that are inspired in respect, in mechanisms and principles that

encourage integrity and interdisciplinarity, and link them with development,

democracy and, denitely, with peace.

The family undoubtedly becomes a heritage of humanity where values

are forged that, in turn, confer on society a spirit of fraternity and solidarity

between generations, the welcome of life and ethics of care. And that is why,

as the family is a perfect reference for internal solidarity and social partici-

pation, in it we nd the link between many ideologies and confessions that

advocate recognizing, protecting and promoting the value of family.

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LOURDES DE MIGUEL SÁEZ

Therefore, opting for dialogue and for intercultural and interreligious in-

tegration involves a previous mutual respect, an exact denition of the values

that must govern coexistence and a reciprocal integrative learning of what is

positive for all, and helps to build a space of common dignity. Pope Francis,

at the 48th World Day of Social Communications, clearly expressed what the

meaning of the word “dialogue” is: “to be convinced that the other has some-

thing good to say, to welcome his point of view, his proposals. Dialogue does

not mean giving up oneʼs own ideas and traditions, but the pretention that they

are unique and absolute”.

In November 2011, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved

the Declaration on Education and Training in Human Rights, and highlighted,

precisely, the value of education and training in Human Rights, understanding

it as a process that is prolonged throughout the whole of life and affects all

ages without exception.

All the actions and efforts undoubtedly pass through the development of

the human personality and the sense of dignity, and through this to promote

understanding, tolerance, gender equality and friendship between all the na-

tions, racial, national ethnic, religious and linguistic groups. And something

that should not be lost sight of: that the effective participation of all people in

a society where the rule of Law prevails is facilitated. Because when it works

in justice and it presides over our actions, each one is granted what is his and

there are no inequalities or damages.

3. the role oF the holy see in FAvor oF PeACe

The input and contribution of the Catholic Church for the defense and

promotion of Human Rights is undeniable as well as the tireless work in order

to achieve the peace of the peoples, at internal level and the national environ-

ment, and also in bilateral and multilateral relations, from its representation to

States, on the basis of the recognition of its international legal personality and

through the political and diplomatic functions of the Holy See.

From the beginning, the Catholic Church has supported the recognition

of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms, and has done so through the

Pontical Magisterium and with a message of sharp rejection violence of

any origin, however minimal. And it has continually appealed for the obser-

vance of those rights, considering them the most optimal means to protect

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mankind, the persons of all peoples, and to promote and defend their dignity.

Pope Francis, in the Conference “Rethinking Europe” addressed to Chris-

tians, reminded them that they are called “to give Europe a soul again, to

wake up the awareness, not to occupy spaces – that would be proselytism –

but to animate processes that generate new dynamisms in society”. And who

says Europe, the same is applicable to the rest of countries from different

continents.

Violence, and this must be clear, is not only that which arises from the

military confrontations or ghts and quarrels that end in physical injuries.

Neither is violence a negative quality that is only associated with men and

excludes women. Violence is not something that is linked to an age, but is

exercised by any child, youth, adult or elderly, who present defects in their

human formation. Violence adopts many forms and extends to diverse areas

of daily life and society, manifesting itself verbally, physically, emotionally,

culturally, ideologically and structurally, and those kinds of violence that are

recorded in the crime statistics and which the media echoes become a clear

obstacle for building peace.

Peace is a right as well as the ultimate aim of the future of our democratic

society. And if we do not consolidate this right in a climate of respect, on

which the rest of the rights pivot, society will stop feeling free and become a

slave of particular interests and selsh goals. The Government of a nation, as

an instrument and an executing arm of a State guarantor of rights, whose roots

descend into a history of democratic achievements, cannot satisfy the interests

of a few. Because to recognize rights does not mean to grant a special protec-

tion status that remains under the arbitrary decision of the State, of intermit-

tent efcacy, but implies guarding it because its existence is not questioned as

it is something inherent to the human being. The State can never disregard this

duty of protection and care.

Leo XIII warned about this in his Encyclical Rerum novarum: “if the

citizens, if the families, participants of human coexistence and society, nd

in the public powers prejudice rather than help, a curtailment of their rights

rather than its guardianship, the society would be, more than desirable, wor-

thy of repulsion” (n. 9). Therefore, when the voice of the people is raised to

advocate rights which the public Powers do not attend to, when it brings to

light the existence of injustices, perhaps it is the moment to rethink what is

failing and what are the reasons. Something that does not result alien when, in

modern democracies, many rulers try to impose absurd egos by circumventing

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the duty of service to the citizen and losing sight of security and protection for

the future generations.

In 1789 the French people came out onto the streets to confront the pre-

vious Regime, the so-called “Old Regime”, and marked the beginning of the

contemporary age as a prelude to modern democratic society. Then arises that

Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen that was still imbued with the

spirit of the United States Declaration of Independence, upholding three of the

principles on which the Constitutions of the States would be based: equality,

freedom and fraternity.

But we had to wait to witness the horror of the world wars for the inter-

national Community to react and join in a unanimous demand, agreeing on

a common roadmap that was applicable to all peoples and nations. Human

Rights were presented as “the recognition of the inalienable dignity of human

beings”. And in this historical context of good purposes and rm intentions,

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948 and thus rec-

ognized by each State in its legal system and in the international treaties, rati-

ed under the heading of Civil, Political and Economic, Social and Cultural

Rights.

Meanwhile, we must point out that Human Rights are not simple legisla-

tive measures or normative decisions taken by those in power. Human Rights

constitute those principles that are expressed as human values, legal norms

or political agreements to regulate the peaceful coexistence between all the

citizens. They are dynamic, not static, although their essence is unalterable

and immutable. And although we refer to them from their positive nature, in as

much as a right is in force and included in valid laws in the for all, we must not

only accept that they are found within a normative structure, but must insist

that they are observed effectively.

Therefore, these rights are accompanied by the qualier of inalienable,

non-transferable, inherent or innate, universal, limited, obligatory and invio-

lable. All of them enjoy a common and unique nature and essence, creating

an insurmountable barrier of protection that pretends to curb any attempt to

violate them, and that Universal Declaration undoubtedly reinforced the con-

viction, that respect of the Human Rights is rooted principally in the justice

that does not change, on which the binding force of the international procla-

mations is also based.

For its part, as we will now see, the Catholic Church has played a rel-

evant role in the promotion of Human Rights and has maintained a total and

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absolute commitment and implication, remaining over time without changing

an apex of its messages and declarations.

The example is to be found in the Ponticate of John XXIII, which also

meant a reconciliation of the Catholic Church with the modern world, thanks

to the reforms introduced to its approach not only to believers, but also to those

who had not raised Christ in their lives. He spoke about social justice and sought

peace, because he had lived in the rst person the devastation of a war on the

battleeld during World War I, when he was incorporated into the body of mili-

tary chaplains. Hence, his last Encyclical, Pacem in terris, became a call to all

human beings and all nations to ght together in the pursuit of peace. He was

also appointed Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN and knew that,

in order to achieve a true civilization with deep values and reasons to live, the

world needed to recover its soul to dynamize the communion, inclusion, integra-

tion and to create bridges against the walls and trenches. And that soul is what

the Pope Francis advocates today, qualifying it as the “culture of encounter”.

Pope John XXIII conquered the heart of many because of his close, simple

and paternal style. He held that we had to seek more what unites us than what

divides us. He was a person characterized by being a “the man of encounter”,

“the Pope of peace”, because the testimony of his life was an example of the at-

tempt to overcome all the barriers and to confront together humanityʼs current

problems which increasingly tend to divide people and groups, and to create

tensions between societies and States. He was able, even with the manifest op-

position and scandal of some cardinals, to open the convocation of the Second

Vatican Council to the members and representatives of other Christian confes-

sions gathering them in Rome and attributing to them, in turn, an important role

in the promotion of the culture of encounter that himself began to engender.

It should be remembered how, then as Archbishop Roncalli, Apostolic

Delegate of the Vatican in Turkey during World War II, his intervention was

decisive in saving the lives of thousands of Jews. As also, during his Ponti-

cate, his intervention was vital to avoid a third world war with devastating con-

sequences after a scheduled nuclear confrontation between Kennedy and the

Soviets. His message was clear and overwhelming: he asked the two powers

not to ignore the anguish suffered by Humanity in that October 1962. And both

leaders, Kennedy and Khruschchev, withdrew the ships carrying those nuclear

missiles at the same time.

Undoubtedly, the Popes who succeeded in the Ponticate of the twentieth

century had known and experienced the terrible consequences of wars that had

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left many wounds open which would take years to close. And all of them had

advocated the defense of the Human Rights as principle and basis of under-

standing between the nations, as that universal language that was understood

by all and also caused effects on all.

Paul VI was also a protagonist of the Cold War, having raised his voice

of peace in world forums such as the UN; or through Encyclicals such as Ec-

clesiam suam and Populorum progressio to attend more swiftly to the problem

of developing countries. He therefore instituted the World Day of Peace for

each January 1, beginning on the rst day of the year 1968 and pronouncing

himself in this regard with these words: “It would be our wish that later, every

year, this celebration be repeated as an omen and as a promise, at the begin-

ning of the calendar that measures and describes the path of life in time, that it

is Peace with its just and benecial balance that dominates the development of

the future history”.

Karol Wojtyla, as a young student, experienced persecution during the

Nazi occupation of Poland and had to lead a clandestine life for some time in

order to avoid being killed as some of his companions had been. A scene in

one of the lms that were made to make his life better known is very repre-

sentative, when in the middle of some ruins he meets one of the companions

of the Theater group, who heartbreakingly cries without comfort:

Why are these horrors repeated? They only get worse… what is it that

makes their hearts, eyes and minds incapable of feeling compassion and respect,

who are those human beings who have fathers, sons and daughters, who have

wives and husbands they love, they are also made in the image of God? Where

is God? Why do innocents pay? How many innocents have to be born to be

exterminated?

Roman Pontiff, John Paul II remained faithful to the commitment to inter-

vene as a mediator in social conicts, revealing that dialogue and forgiveness

are indispensable elements to curb any outbreak of violence, something he

knew to live in practice with Christian coherence, exercising mercy and char-

ity without limits.

We must remember today that message of 1999, where he himself re-

called the rst Encyclical, Redemptor hominis, that addressed all men and

women of good will, where he spotlighted the importance of the respect for

Human Rights:

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THE RECOGNITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE CULTURE...

Peace ourishes when these rights are integrally observed, while war is born

of its transgression and is converted, in turn, into the cause of further even more

serious violations thereof (…) On the contrary, if Human Rights are ignored or

despised, or the search for particular interests unfairly prevails over the common

good, the germs of instability, rebellion and violence are inevitably sown (n. 1).

The successor of John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, put all his endeavor

into denouncing the dictatorship of relativism, implanted in our society, where

one ends up looking in the mirror of oneʼs own vanity and self-interests, quite

the opposite to the universal ethics that asks us to focus rst on others and

their needs. In his Social Encyclical Caritas in veritate, Benedict XVI re-

called the importance of putting charity into practice because only through it,

Christianity results credible, being the rst expression of this truth the priority

of service to others, the respect, without turning a blind eye in the face of the

suffering and misery of the men and women of our world.

Therefore, todayʼs society needs to rediscover its most fundamental truth

in order to overcome the crisis that that has been experienced for some years

now. Without this basis, some will exploit others for their own ends and hu-

man beings will be used instead of being respected.

Benedict XVI knew how to speak courageously and was able to label

the cancer that is consuming our society. Surely, we all remember that fa-

mous phrase where he pointed out that: “A dictatorship of relativism is being

constituted that recognizes nothing as denitive and leaves only its own self

and its appertences as a nal measure” (Homily at Mass “Pro Eligendo Ro-

mano Pontice”). A relativism, which as we know, abandons the possibility

of dialogue to achieve a common truth on which to build human coexistence,

development as persons and as a society, and introduces a dictatorship, which

leads to selshness and individualism.

In a relativistic context tolerance does not reign, but the strongest pre-

vails, with an aggressive and belligerent discourse, provoking the destruc-

tion of that network of containment that is universal human rights, common

truths. It is not necessary to cross the borders of each country to talk about

conicts, because although our countries labeled as “democratic” do not have

the character of “armed” and although we are not facing a declared civil war,

the tension and confrontation for purely ideological reasons generate conicts

that wear away the coexistence and fragment our society. The attacks on na-

tional unity, the different social conicts, the struggle in order to eradicate the

Christian heritage and roots, the verbal aggressions and profanation of places

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of worship by militants of radical laicism, the open gap against immigration

and confusion before the deviation of a religion, labeling all its faithful as po-

tential terrorists, provoking racist and xenophobic attitudes, reveal that their

discourse is empty of content, because some rights cannot be vindicated at the

cost of violating others. And we live in European democratic countries, which

have even subscribed to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and our Constitu-

tions endorse rights and freedoms enshrined in law, but the loss of values and

principles and by having allowed the entry of relativism, only demonstrates

the sad reality of those who defend their particular and personal pretensions

on the margins of the common good.

It is curious that, according to a 2018 Report of the Observatory for Re-

ligious Freedom and Consciousness, the majority of attacks against religious

freedom in Spain, which is a fundamental right, are against Catholic Chris-

tians. And all because the Church is annoying and uncomfortable, since it

awakens the conscience and makes a rm call to recover the identity of the

human being, as a man of peace and promoter of it.

Justice is going to be that instrument capable of restoring the imbalances

provoked by partisan struggles and unfounded pretensions, capable of re-

making poorly designed layouts that have moved away from rectitude. But

sometimes, also, we hear with surprise

judicial pronouncements by judges and

magistrates in charge of justice, protecting conduct damaging human rights

under a supposed right to the freedom of expression.

Therefore, today, in the face of the challenges presented by a society en-

deavoring to destroy itself under the false conception of self-reliance and pro-

gress, it is necessary to work actively in favor of defending life in all its phases

and, fundamentally, to promote the respect for the human embryo, tutelage

and promotion of the family, freedom of parents in the education of their chil-

dren, social guardianship of minors, and the release of the victims of new

forms of slavery, religious freedom, the development of an economy that is at

the service of the person and the common good, respect for social justice, for

the principle of human solidarity and subsidiarity, and the promotion of peace,

as the work of justice and the effect of charity.

In view of the foregoing, Human Rights remain “orphaned” if there is no

active commitment on the part of the Peoplesʼ Governors to not fall into indif-

ference about a globalization that has taken away the conscience. Two years

ago, Pope Francis recalled, referring to the European reality, that:

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THE RECOGNITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE CULTURE...

There are no citizens, there are votes. There are no emigrants, there are

fees. There are no workers, there are economic indicators. There are no poor,

there are poverty thresholds. The concreteness of the human person has thus been

reduced to an abstract, more comfortable and reassuring principle. The reason is

understood; the persons have faces, they force us to assume a real and personal

responsibility; the gures have to do with reasoning, also useful and important,

but they will always remain soulless. They offer us excuses for not compromis-

ing, because they never touch our own esh.

The latest events and phenomena in Europe, that reect a deep socio-

economic-political crisis, are what lead the Pope to insist in his speeches on

the importance of procuring the reconciliation of all orders of society.

Benedict XVI also proposed two antidotes for the challenge posed by

contemporary culture: to extend the limits of reason and to put charity into

practice. Opting for a shared ethic, common values, is a possible goal of rea-

son. It is possible to come to the truth about the dignity of the human being,

even if it is not something empirical. For that one has to open oneself and

expand the limits of reason.

The German Pope, when visiting in 2008 the headquarters of the United

Nations, when he took the oor as his predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II

had done, recalled that Human Rights are based “on the natural law inscribed

in the heart of man and that it is present in different cultures and civilizations”

and added that “Human Rights are increasingly presented as the common lan-

guage and ethical substrate of international relations”. Representatives from

all over the world listened to the master lines that dene a culture of peace,

those words separated only by a different language, but with an unequivocal

meaning: the recognition of Human Rights as the precondition for peace.

Contemporary history has tragically highlighted the danger that is con-

tained in the oblivion of the truth about the human person. The fruits of ide-

ologies in the rst half of the previous century are visible, such as Marxism,

Nazism and Fascism, as well as the myths of racial superiority, nationalism

and ethnic particularism (let us also think of all the atrocities and genocides

from the last quarter of the 20th century in Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,

Liberia, Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Serbia). No less pernicious, although

not always so eye-catching, are the effects of materialistic consumerism, in

which the exaltation of individual and egocentric satisfaction of personal as-

pirations become the ultimate goal of life. In this perspective, the negative

repercussions on others are considered entirely irrelevant. It is necessary to

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reafrm, however, that no offense to human dignity can be ignored, whatever

its origin, its modality or the place where it happens. When a human being

suffers, the entire Humanity is brought to its knees.

4. Current reFleCtion on the Contribution oF humAn riGhts to the Culture

oF enCounter

We will enumerate below, from a practical and current perspective, some

of the rights that remain news today, with greater or lesser incidence accord-

ing to the scale that measures their severity or their social impact, and we will

analyze in them the original elements that can respond positively in favor of

propitiating the culture of peace and encounter.

The very rst, is the fundamental right to life, a dignied life that is pro-

tected from the conception until it ends naturally. The innocents are unpro-

tected under the supposed protection of the bearers of life, who later, precisely

because they cannot live in peace with themselves and the weight of guilt,

decide to attempt suicide. These statistics do not appear in the media, but are

recorded, for example, in the consultations of many Psychiatrists.

Human gametes are also manipulated by experimenting in laboratories in

order to meet a demand “à la carte”, to cover a supposed maternal and paternal

instinct that does not cease to be a whim and a challenge to the natural cycle

of life, and human beings are created in exchange for a price, becoming an

object of buying and selling. The dignity of the human being is ignored and

the grace of receiving a talent is perverted to stay diluted in the middle of one

more manifestation of the reigning consumerism.

In the same way, society, with a certain hypocrisy, seems obsessed with

the accessibility and inclusion of disabled people, with diverse diseases or in

the phase of the senescence, but admits and supports their elimination under

the justication of saving unnecessary suffering to family members and the

person in concern. Thus, is detected the existence of an intergenerational con-

ict that succumbs to the budgets of a utilitarian society and promoter of a

short-route “progress”. Therefore, at the 73rd Plenary Assembly of the United

Nations, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See, Mons. Auza, argued with

determination that “integral human development ultimately requires a renewal

of the humanity that allows to persons to discover who they really are, and

to learn to build a hospitable and inclusive society with space for everyone”.

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The right to life is also constantly threatened by the presence of poverty,

precariousness and hunger, lack of health care (within a right to health), traf-

cking in human beings and organ trafcking, attacks on the physical and

psychic integrity of vulnerable persons. In some less developed countries we

nd in greater numbers violent deaths as a consequence of organized crime

and of diverse criminal modalities with collective or individual authorship,

the trafcking of weapons and drugs, as well as the damage to the environ-

ment that causes people detrimental consequences. And despite the fact that

national plans and specic programs are designed to combat it, the integral

fulllment of respect for Human Rights does not challenge us to the point of

generating concrete actions to strengthen and preserve them from any attack

and interference.

Another right is religious freedom, which our democratic society attempts

to silence and is an object of continuous provocations that surprisingly some

courts see as legitimate on the basis of the right to freedom of expression. We

are concerned about the terrorist threat of the self-proclaimed Islamic State,

which clearly disturbs the peace of a large part of

international society, but

we do not identify as damaging acts in times and places of stability which

outrage the religious feelings of Catholics and other minority groups by rep-

resentatives of parts of the population inciting hatred and marginalizing and

discriminating people for following a determined religious creed. Not only do

they not seek to eradicate all manifestations of hate in this sense, but use their

position to enliven it and to contaminate thought. Today the populisms of the

21st century, with their political programs based on being built on the discredit

of others, have introduced mysteriously the hatred towards everything that is

related to religion, concretely with the Catholic Church.

On the other hand, in many towns the right to participate in the life of

community and to decide on the future of their nation is still limited to citi-

zens through the legitimate representatives who consider they must hold the

power of representation. We saw it recently in the relating to us the reality of

a country like Venezuela, which is going through a political and humanitarian

crisis that becomes, as the days and months pass by, more dramatic. But there

are more countries whose reality is silenced and does not reach public opinion.

That is where the Catholic Church exhorts us to respond to the primary needs

of the population, as well as urges political dialogue to propitiate an immedi-

ate solution to the existing conicts, so that a political program can be tackled

in a climate of serenity, that prompts a true democratic process.

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In fact, we cannot ignore either how the victims of oppression and de-

spair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, can easily yield to the

impulse of violence and become themselves the transgressors of the peace.

Reproducing the patterns of violence can be something very simple and that

operates in a short space of time. Once again, we highlight the role of educa-

tion in avoiding this type of conduct spreading among the youngest, since it

is they who, by natural tendency, are more exposed to be contaminated and to

imitate the exercise of the evil.

Likewise, the international community must intervene without concern

for the economic interests that interfere with the achievement of their ob-

jectives, and which in reality prompted the intervention in the rst place. It

should avoid producing even more mismatches in internal governance that

lead the country to submission to a new power and denies it its right of self-

determination. The International Community is legitimized, therefore, to pro-

tect Human Rights and to restore the conditions that make their recognition

possible, and in part, it must not only provide the humanitarian assistance to

meet the basic needs of the population, but also must endow them with the

means of education and innovative projects in order to encourage advanced

technology and expand knowledge and aptitudes to a level of fair autonomy.

This, in turn, affects the right to a decent job in any employments that make

possible useful service to society and the right to self-realization, both per-

sonal and professional, and in a manner that will optimize the development

of oneʼs personality. It must suppose a form to restore, on a smaller or larger

scale, the respect for rights of the person that are not granted, but must be

directly recognized.

Very closely linked to the international responsibility in the exploitation

of the natural resources and their impact on the natural environment is found

the right to a healthy environment, harmonizing a more moderate lifestyle

with the rational use of wealth offered by creation. Also, environmental de-

velopment, as part of the interests of an interconnected reality, is one of the

objectives present in the culture of encounter as it empowers human develop-

ment among the nations.

And nally, the right to Peace, the foundation of all human rights because

without it, the integral development of the peoples cannot be promoted. As the

ultimate goal is the common good, it is the main engine of the ght against the

terrible experience of wars, conicts and violence of diverse nature.

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THE RECOGNITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE CULTURE...

It is a veriable fact how Pope Francis has joined, in his multiple mes-

sages, in the universal call for peace through the respect of the rights of each

and every person that populates the earth. He has done so in a special way at

the World Peace Days. In addition, taking advantage of his trips to other coun-

tries, he exhorts dialogue and negotiation in order to overcome and resolve

conicts and differences, which he has repeatedly qualied on various occa-

sions as a third world war.

Currently there are many active conicts, ranging from those qualied as

large scale dening those wars that cause more than 10 000 deaths a year, to

those that are denominated as small conicts for not causing more than 1000

deaths a year. We recall, among others, Ukraine, the Korean peninsula, the

War against the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, the

recent tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, the status quo of Jerusalem

or the African continent. Wars that suppose the failure of all authentic human-

ism and that divide international support again into the duality of groups of

world powers with greater economic and arms capacity. And a new concept of

war has also been generated, which has passed from being strictly defensive to

“preventive war”, especially after what happened in the attack on the United

States.

In many homes, victims continue to suffer abuse, violence, exclusion,

discrimination and even semi-slavery in the family. In schools, some children

suffer abuse in the form of rejection, harassment, abuse by their classmates

or even some teachers and, in some families, the elderly are not only mis-

treated, but also are abandoned in the literal sense of the term. Perhaps here

it would be necessary to rethink the educational system and endow children

with knowledge and competence to be able to resolve conicts in a civilized

manner, in order to eradicate the violence generated by the loss of values in a

new social and political framework.

That is why, paradoxically, in a society where technology brings people

closer to the knowledge and education as to why these values are necessary

to preserve social coexistence, the statistics are chilling. Really, we are not

certain about what constitutes an injustice and what a manifest violation of the

superior quality of the human being.

Human Rights undoubtedly involve the parameter of the civilized life.

These rights must be known, exercised and respected, but it is not just about

understanding them, because this would leave the open door to the debat-

able and opposable, and we would only face a clear legal uncertainty but an

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arbitrary form of conducting something exclusive to every human being. And

for this, we must teach people to reect on our own behavior and actions.

Therefore, given this exposition of the great challenges that confront funda-

mental rights, seeing that these are located in the genesis of the necessary

recognition of human dignity, we can only support the hypothesis that the

fulllment of the natural requirements implicit in the operating reality in this

series of rights is part of the path towards the construction of a culture of en-

counter, of a culture of peace.

6. ConClusions

Designing training projects on Human Rights involves the most effec-

tive strategy to eliminate the inequalities between countries and social groups

and, therefore, to increase the security and, thus, achieve social peace. And

that promotion has to be carried out through an increasingly solid, democratic,

inclusive and safe education, contemplating, among other initiatives, the trans-

formation of conicts through communication, developing empathy towards

the problems of the other; proposing and favoring a space for critical-creative

thinking, developing skills to understand reality and transform it through col-

laborative solutions and build bridges to foster participation and social aware-

ness. Sincere support for the culture of encounter must be nurtured by objective

responses, tangible facts and secure conquests in terms of the rights of persons.

It is undeniable that Human Rights respond to a dynamic process and

that, through their experience, we reafrm our humanity and make possi-

ble the creation of a world in which it will be more difcult to violate them.

Therefore, we must suggest a real education and training in Human Rights,

not only the conceptual part related to history, to classication of declara-

tions, letters, treaties, generations of new rights and problems of foundation;

and neither only the attitudinal, expressed in the testimonies of human rights

violations, news, texts, lms, but it is necessary to accompany an innovative

training with the strengthening and transparency of the conscience, and the

formation of a correct public opinion, that pursue one of the main objectives:

propitiate the effective change in order to have active and responsible citizens.

For this, it becomes necessary to demand that the State creates conditions to

confront the socio-economic challenges at national and global level for peace

to become a reality.

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THE RECOGNITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE CULTURE...

Certainly, the recognition of Human Rights by the Church, as we have

seen, is and has been in practice much broader than by the secular power, be-

cause it makes no exceptions and because, as already stated in the Encyclical

Centesimus annus, “Above the logic of the exchanges based on parameters

and their fair forms, there is something that is due to the man because he

is man, by virtue of his eminent dignity” (n. 34). It is also true that from a

Christian perspective there is a signicant relationship between the evangeli-

cal message and the recognition of Human Rights, according to the spirit of

the editors of this Declaration.

Clearly, the key is found in families, in classrooms, in the vote delegated

to political representatives in each nation. It is necessary to work and ask – be-

cause also in this requirement a right persists to work with the concrete guide-

lines of action. Everyday behavior, as the supreme expression of the culture,

must be directed towards the acceptance of the innite cultural diversity and

towards learning without borders, seeking the activation of young peopleʼs

talent and potential and delivering them an experience marked by success

and failure, making them the most important heritage to be safeguarded; sup-

porting the transition from the reason of force to the force of reason, from

oppression to dialogue, from isolation to interaction, in all cases acting from a

position of respect, which must be the fundamental basis of our peaceful and

free coexistence as a society in peace building and peoplesʼ progress.

Finally, it is essential to convert the promotion of Human Rights into its

own life style and to return to their materialization in a global context where

an open, fruitful and integral dialogue is promoted. On the basis of Human

Rights, the paradigm of a society must be constructed that has an integrative

memory of its values, its culture, its religion and of all those achievements

that contributed to overcoming the historical challenges. The strengthening

of unity from the historical, cultural and religious roots pass through respect

for diversity, becoming the space of the encounter where the preconditions for

defending human dignity converge, whose root is found in the recognition of

the Human Rights inherent to every human person.

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7. reFerenCes

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Administration Magazine 2 extra, 17-46.

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Human Rights. New York.

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DHREducationTraining.aspx.aspx (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Auza, B. (2018). 73rd United Nations Plenary Assembly. New York.

https://www.agenciasic.es/2018/10/18/la-cultura-del-encuentro-logra-un-buen-

desarrollo-integral-humano/ (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Benedict XVI (2008). Apostolic Journey to the United States of America and visit to

the headquarters of the United Nations Organization. Holy See.

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hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080418_un-visit.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Benedict XVI (2009). Encyclical Letter Caritas in veritate of the Supreme Pontiff

Benedict XVI to the Bishops, to the priests and deacons, to the consecrated per-

sons, to all the lay faithful and to all men of good will on the integral human

development in charity and in truth.

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xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Bergoglio, J. M. (2014). È l'amore che apre gli occhi. Milano: Edizione Rizzoli.

De la Torre Díaz, J. (2018). “Pope Francis and the Culture of Encounter. A contribu-

tion to the Dialogue and peace between religions”. Miscelánea Comillas 76/148,

233-259.

Falcón and Tella, F. (2007). Challenges for human rights. Leyden. The Netherlands:

Martinus Nijhoff.

Francis (2014). Message of the Holy Father for the XLVIII World Day of Social Com-

munications. Holy See.

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ments/papa-francesco_20140124_messaggio-comunicazioni-sociali.html (last

accessed: 2020/04/07).

Francis (2015). Speech during the visit to the Congress of the United States of America.

Holy See.

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papa-francesco_20150924_usa-us-congress.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Francis (2017). Speech of the Holy Father Francis to the participants in the Con-

ference “Rethinking Europe” organized by the Commission of the Episcopal

Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) in collaboration with the

Secretary of State. Holy See.

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http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/es/speeches/2017/october/documents/pa-

pa-francesco_20171028_conferenza-comece.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

García, R.-Blanco, P. (eds.) (2013). Culture and Society. Madrid: Palabra.

John Paul II (1979). Encyclical Letter Redemptor hominis of the Supreme Pontiff

John Paul II to the venerable brothers in the Episcopate, to priests, to religious

relatives, to the sons and daughters of the Church and to all men of good will at

the beginning of his pontical ministry. Holy See.

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enc_04031979_redemptor-hominis.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

John Paul II (1991). Encyclical Letter Centesimus annus of the Supreme Pontiff John

Paul II on the centenary of the Rerum novarum. Holy See.

https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/es/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_

enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

John Paul II (1999). Message of His Holiness John Paul II for the celebration of the

XXXII World Day of Peace. Holy See.

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ii_mes_14121998_xxxii-world-day-for-peace.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

John Paul II (2003). Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Europa about

Jesus Christ alive in his Church and source of hope for Europe. Holy See.

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on the situation of the workers. Holy See.

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Europe”. Ecclesiastical Studies 354, 397-443.

Martínez, J. L. (2017). “(Re)thinking Europe from the culture of encounter”. Reason

and Faith 276/1430, 435-336.

Martínez, J. L., (2017). The culture of encounter. Challenge and interpellation for

Europe. Santander: Sal Terrae.

Observatory for religious freedom and conscience (2019). Report on Attacks on Reli-

gious Freedom in Spain.

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la-asamblea-de-madrid/ (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

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Peace”. Holy See.

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Cardinals at Mass “Pro Eligendo Romano Pontice”. Holy See.

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ice_20050418_sp.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

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Vasak, K. (1998). “The human right to peace”. Time of Peace 48, 19-24.

193

UNIVERSITY AS AN INSTRUMENT

FOR CONFLICT PREVENTION

ConCePCión AlbArrÁn FernÁndez & dAvid sAnz bAs

1. introduCtion

The last 30 years have been characterized by a strong acceleration in the

level of economic and social globalization among different countries. This

process has been an inevitable consequence of the technological advances and

greater political openness of countries.

Undoubtedly, this globalization has led to greater economic prosperity

in most territories and has enabled hundreds of millions of people to escape

poverty. However, it has also generated highly signicant conicts and cul-

tural clashes such as terrorism, crime, xenophobia, forced migration, dilution

of identity, neocolonialism, etc. These situations have had, among others, a

visible effect on the political plane in different countries and, in Europe and

North America, the consensus between Social Democracy and Christian De-

mocracy that was established after the Second World War is collapsing. The

coexistence between cultures, in many cases so different, has given rise to

numerous problems and stressful situations.

In this article, the intention is to reect on the role of the University in the

culture of encounter and in the resolution of conicts. We will argue that the

university is an institution that, on the one hand, contributes enormously to the

economic and social development of countries and, on the other, is capable of

building bridges for understanding and dialogue between people and cultures.

Therefore, the university is an institution that serves to build a society with

greater harmony and maturity.

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CONCEPCIÓN ALBARRÁN FERNÁNDEZ & DAVID SANZ BAS

The scheme is as follows. In point 2, we reect on the university and its

function of generating economic and social development. In point 3, we talk

about the university and its function as a creator of dialogue. Finally, in point

4, we offer some conclusions.

2. the university And eConomiC And soCiAl develoPment

2.1. University education as a “common good”

In a world such as the one in which we nd ourselves today, university

education is considered essential to provide the best response to the socio-

economic problems of the global environment.

Adam Smith, in his work “The Wealth of Nations” in 1776, argued that

education should be provided to the entire world. Stuart Mill although he de-

fended that “laissez-faire (…) was common practice”, accepted the interven-

tion of the state in the case of education.

The emerging welfare state sanctioned this practice – the education was

seen as a public good and the state became responsible for providing it to the

public.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that the consideration of education as a

public good is not completely correct, given the characteristics that, according

to the economic denition, a public good should meet; i.e., no exclusion due

to prices and no competition in terms of consumption.

The denition of a public good is due to Musgrave (1941, 1959, 1969),

although Samuelson (1954) generalized it in contrast to that of a private good;

it is dened as “a good whose consumption does not diminish its availability

for other consumers”. And this, for technical reasons, is not fullled in the

case of education, although for ethical or legal reasons it does. Daviet (2016)

expressly states that “education is not considered as non-exclusive for techni-

cal reasons, but rather for ethical or legal reasons” and, in this sense, considers

that state intervention is essential for education to be accessible for all people

and, therefore, equity may be guaranteed.

Additionally, there are other reasons that justify the intervention of the

public sector in the eld of education, specically in the education market.

These are: lack of rationality of economic agents due to imperfect informa-

tion that exists in the labor market (companies offering jobs are unaware of

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UNIVERSITY AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR CONFLICT PREVENTION

the educational and training level of people who offer their time and knowl-

edge for work) and the production of externalities associated with education

(a more educated and trained society has more productive capacity and is also

capable of solving problems in a more “rational” way and, therefore, produces

collective as well as individual benets).

Furthermore, it should be noted that according to Musgrave (1959), edu-

cation is also a merit good, meaning, a good that must be accessible to all peo-

ple, by the mere fact of being, regardless of one’s ability to pay. The invention

of this concept by Musgrave sought to introduce ethical, social, and cultural

considerations to the characterization of education as a public good.

In 2005, UNESCO proposed the rethinking of education from a humanist

and value approach considering it as a common good. Common goods relate

to a social order that is not reduced to individual needs and have much to do

with the merit goods dened by Musgrave.

Daviet (2016) defends this idea,

considering education as a common good to include ethical and political as-

pects while taking into consideration the role of agents other than the state for

the provision of education.

2.2. The importance of education for regional development

The development of countries cannot be identied as a mere increase

in per capita production, but rather by the development of the potential of

individuals that comprise a society. In particular, Pope Paul VI explains in

Populorum progressio that one can only speak of economic progress if the

aspirations of man are satised:

Today we see men trying to secure a sure food supply, cures for diseases, and

steady employment. We see them trying to eliminate every ill, to remove every

obstacle which offends manʼs dignity. They are continually striving to exercise

greater personal responsibility; to do more, learn more, and have more so that

they might increase their personal worth. […] Moreover, those nations which

have recently gained independence nd that political freedom is not enough.

They must also acquire the social and economic structures and processes that

accord with manʼs nature and activity, if their citizens are to achieve personal

1. Mastromatteo and Solari (2014) dene common good as “an inter-subjective evaluation related

to the processes necessary to respond to the needs of the community”.

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CONCEPCIÓN ALBARRÁN FERNÁNDEZ & DAVID SANZ BAS

growth and if their country is to take its rightful place in the international com-

munity (n. 6).

As can be seen, economic development has multiple dimensions and de-

pends on many factors. Among them, undoubtedly, one of the most important

is education. In this sense, for example, Díaz and Alemán (2008) in their ar-

ticle “Education as a factor of development” insist on the importance of the

educational process for regional development and state literally “societies that

seek development must promote education which educates creative, innova-

tive, and free people addressing all social sectors”. And people with more

education will have more capacity to promote progress and adapt to changes

in the environment. Therefore, they will use dialogue and not violence, thus

avoiding many unnecessary conicts.

The rm belief in these capacities of people with more education has

become the primary justication for the expenditure by public entities of dif-

ferent countries for the education of their citizens, as well as action by the

Church for global education.

Proof of this is the central role that the investment in education has in the

abundant literature on economic development of the last 60 years (Bustelo,

1998; Sharipov, 2015; Piętak, 2014).

It may be said that economic development depends on the combination

of three factors:

— Production factors: human capital, physical capital, and technology.

— Institutions: property rights, political stability, fair legal system, hon-

est government, and open and competitive markets.

— Country features: history, culture, and geography.

In this scheme, it is evident that education, especially university education,

is an essential element for any society that aspires to develop since it affects the

three elements that make economic development possible. Specically,

— The human capital of a country is a consequence, in part, of the edu-

cational system. Thus, a society with good universities will tend to

generate more sophisticated and productive human capital. Likewise,

the continuous change generated by the dynamics of globalization

requires a continuous update of human capital. To this, universities

contribute enormously, above all, through their distance learning pro-

grams.

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UNIVERSITY AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR CONFLICT PREVENTION

— Education reinforces, develops, and perfects the different institutions

on which modern society is articulated. A well-educated society be-

comes demanding of its government, legal system, law enforcement,

etc. In the same way, better general qualication means that the mem-

bers of these institutions themselves are better trained and tend to

make more appropriate decisions.

— The educational system (schools, institutes, universities) is one of

the main foci through which the culture of a nation is generated and

spreads.

Therefore, as is evident, the University is a key factor for economic and

social development, which fosters the emergence of dialogue and the encounter

among people and cultures. As societies develop (i.e., as people improve in the

resolution of their material and social needs), attention and responsiveness to

the weakest groups, such as the elderly, disabled, women, immigrants, develop-

ing countries, etc., tend to increase. This is the experience of the richest coun-

tries where both private and public initiatives to protect the most vulnerable

members of the social fabric have ourished. In this context of greater aware-

ness of the needs of others, dialogue and encounter among people and cultures

can prosper. In this way, the university, as a key driver for economic and social

development, is an institution that helps reduce the tensions of coexistence.

3. the university And the CreAtion oF diAloGue

3.1. The role of university education in conict prevention

In the context of the current global risks that must be addressed, new chal-

lenges arise, while conict prevention acquires greater signicance.

It is a fact that changes that occur in one place affect other countries

within a very short period of time. Problems have acquired a transnational

character. They occur in one country, but their consequences spread rapidly

on a global scale. Moreover, it should be noted that in this scenario some

fundamental elements stand out as threats to peace, security, and, thus, the

generation of conict. Among others:

— Environmental degradation.

— Natural disasters.

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CONCEPCIÓN ALBARRÁN FERNÁNDEZ & DAVID SANZ BAS

— Terrorism.

— Refugee crises.

— Sexual violence as a weapon of war.

— Economic and social inequality.

The fundamental purpose of the United Nations Organization since its

inception, in its interest to maintain and build peace, is the prevention of con-

ict. Chapter VI of its Founding Charter (United Nations 1945) sets out pre-

ventive measures such as mediation, arbitration, or negotiation for the peace-

ful settlement of disputes. In the 21st century, its conict prevention policies

have become a fundamental pillar for achieving peace and security.

Thought should be given here to how the university could contribute to

this objective, given the desirability of conict prevention.

Taking into consideration the tools for conict prevention, which Cuadra-

do (2018) points out (preventive diplomacy, good ofces, and mediation) and,

considering that effective prevention “requires an integrated strategy by dif-

ferent sectors (diplomatic, military, political, economic, social, and cultural)

and with different periods of action” (García, 2002), it is clear that people with

the highest levels of university education are required to work on structural

and operational prevention measures.

University education for participation in conict prevention has been car-

ried out, up to now, in a general manner, leaving the more specic education

for further professional training (i.e. preparation for access to the diplomatic

corps and security forces, among others). However, currently, masterʼs degrees

in this eld are being implemented in some universities and the need to train

people in this eld is clear, given its increasing importance within the UN.

3.2. The university as a point of encounter

The university is always an instrument of encounter among cultures and

people, regardless of whether its funding is public or private or its religious

or secular afliation. This is due to the raison dʼetre of the university being

the search for truth and, since truth is singular and unique, all people who

honestly seek truth nd themselves within it. In fact, consensus among people

is only possible because there is an attainable common truth. Thus, the search

2. Cuadrado (2018) explains very clearly all the progress that has taken place in the United Nations

Organization as regards conict prevention.

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UNIVERSITY AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR CONFLICT PREVENTION

for truth enables the encounter with others because the individual reaches the

true “I” and the true “you”. As everyone (“I” and “you”) is connected and

united by truth, the encounter is possible (Pope Benedict XVI, 200: 158).

Therefore, universities tend to promote the culture of encounter based on

truth, which is the common link among all individuals and societies.

Likewise, the search for truth that occurs in the university context has two

additional consequences that transform individuals and make them open to

encounter others and overcome conicts (Pope Benedict XVI, 2009):

— Dialogue and listening: in seeking truth, we encounter others, and in

that encounter, a dialogue takes place that enriches the search for truth.

Dialogue involves interlocutors who exchange points of view, results,

difculties, etc. and, therefore, results in active listening by all parties

involved. This listening gives rise to mutual understanding that puri-

es and expands the spirit of the interlocutors, which is very neces-

sary for our time. This is so because, when exchanging impressions,

results, coming together, reaching agreements, etc., empathy grows

and cultural barriers, prejudices, and one’s own limitations tend to de-

crease. Therefore, the dialogue and listening that occurs in the search

for truth lead to purication and personal growth of the individuals

involved.

— Humility: the honest search for truth makes the individual humble

when seeing the immensity of knowledge. Moreover, to know truth,

the researcher tends to overcome their personal interests and prejudic-

es and, in short, frees themselves from egoism. This personal purica-

tion that happens in the individual necessarily makes him/her kinder.

Therefore, to the extent that universities encourage this seless search

for truth, the world is transformed and tends to be more just.

As is evident, the university, in seeking truth, gives rise to an encounter

among people of different cultures and religions and to personal transforma-

tion based on the growth of empathy, humility, and kindness.

3.3. The contribution of Catholic universities

As we have mentioned, the university is a point of encounter among peo-

ple and cultures, as its essence is the honest search for truth. Obviously, truth

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CONCEPCIÓN ALBARRÁN FERNÁNDEZ & DAVID SANZ BAS

may be discovered by all types of people, whether agnostic, atheist, or believ-

ers of different religions.

In this sense, it is worth asking what is the contribution of Catholic uni-

versities? At rst glance, it would seem that Catholic afliation would provide

nothing special to this search for truth. Many might even believe that religion

deects and skews the researcher and, for this reason, it is counterproductive

to have confessional universities. However, following Monsignor Fernando

Sebastián (2009: 96-100), we can afrm that Christian faith greatly facilitates

the process of searching for truth and, thus, Catholic universities are privi-

leged institutions for encounter among people and cultures. These are the rea-

sons that justify this statement:

3.3.1. Faith perfects and stimulates reason

For Christians, the universe was created by God and is not the result of

fortuitous chance. Therefore, creation is built by a series of principles and laws

designed to allow the whole to exist in harmony and balance. For Christians,

these principles and laws exist and can be discovered through the use of reason.

Furthermore, this task is a privilege for the faithful researcher since knowledge

of the universe is a way of understanding God. As experts in literature know,

the creator is known for his work. In this sense, in Fides et Ratio, John Paul

II pointed out that “Faith therefore has no fear of reason, but seeks it out and

has trust in it. Just as grace builds on nature and brings it to fullment, so faith

builds upon and perfects reason illuminated by faith, reason is set free from

the fragility and limitations deriving from the disobedience of sin and nds the

strength required to rise to the knowledge of the Triune God” (n. 43).

3.3.2. The love of creation

Christians consider that God created the world and gave it to man.

However, this dominion over creation is rather a lordship that implies a great

responsibility. Man is lord of the earth and, therefore, must act with justice and

love towards it. Pope Francis in Laudato si’ expressed it in the following way:

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UNIVERSITY AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR CONFLICT PREVENTION

We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to

us. This allows us to respond to the charge that Judaeo-Christian thinking, on

the basis of the Genesis account which grants man “dominion” over the earth

(cf. Gen 1:28), has encouraged the unbridled exploitation of nature by painting

him as domineering and destructive by nature. This is not a correct interpretation

of the Bible as understood by the Church. Although it is true that we Christians

have at times incorrectly interpreted the Scriptures, nowadays we must forcefully

reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over

the earth justies absolute domination over other creatures. The biblical texts are

to be read in their context, with an appropriate hermeneutic, recognition that they

tell us to “till and keep” the garden of the world (cf. Gen 2:15). “Tilling” refers

to cultivating, ploughing or working, while “keeping” means caring, protecting,

overseeing and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility

between human beings and nature. Each community can take from the bounty

of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect

the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations. The earth is the

Lord’s” (Ps 24:1); to him belongs “the earth with all that is within it” (Dt 10:14).

Thus, God rejects every claim to absolute ownership: “The land shall not be sold

in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me

(Lev 25:23). (n. 67)

All this has clear implications for the world of science and universities.

The researcher must be aware that the universe can be studied, but it must

be cared for. The research process itself cannot entail the destruction of that

created. The researcher must act with “utmost respect and veneration and be

surprised to discover the wonders that God has created” (Sebastián, 2009).

3.3.3. Science at the service of the good of man

Given that the universe was created for man, the fruits of his research

must serve the good of man. As a consequence, universities and researchers

have a moral responsibility in relation to what they do. The fact that some-

thing can be done does not mean that it should be done. For example, it is ob-

vious that human beings can create weapons of mass destruction (lethal gases,

atomic bombs, etc.), but this does not imply that he should do so. In this way,

research is not an end in itself, but only a means to serve the common good.

Thus, a Catholic researcher must be clear that there are certain thresholds that

should not be crossed as they do not serve the good of man. This idea was

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CONCEPCIÓN ALBARRÁN FERNÁNDEZ & DAVID SANZ BAS

expressed very clearly by Pope John Paul II in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, a ponti-

cal document that serves as the constitution of all Catholic universities around

the world:

A Catholic University possesses the autonomy necessary to develop its dis-

tinctive identity and pursue its proper mission. Freedom in research and teaching

is recognized and respected according to the principles and methods of each

individual discipline, so long as the rights of the individual and of the community

are preserved within the connes of the truth and the common good (n. 2.5)

3.3.4. Fidelity to truth

We have mentioned that the essence of the university must be the search

for truth and that this is precisely a point of encounter among people and cul-

tures. However, on many occasions, this search is conditioned by economic,

political, and ideological interests that contaminate the purity and honesty of

this search. For the Catholic researcher, it must be clear that seeking truth is

seeking God. Therefore, work must be carried out with scrupulous scientic

honesty, since the love of God and truth must be the main motivation. Accord-

ingly, two teachings that Pope Benedict XVI gave to young Spanish university

professors regarding the search for truth, should be taken into account:

We need to realize in the rst place that the path to the fullness of truth calls

for complete commitment: it is a path of understanding and love, of reason and

faith. We cannot come to know something unless we are moved by love; or, for

that matter, love something which does not strike us as reasonable. “Understand-

ing and love are not in separate compartments: love is rich in understanding and

understanding is full of love” (Caritas in Veritate, 30). If truth and goodness go

together, so too do knowledge and love. This unity leads to consistency in life

and thought, that ability to inspire demanded of every good educator.

In the second place, we need to recognize that truth itself will always lie

beyond our grasp. We can seek it and draw near to it, but we cannot completely

possess it; or put better, truth possesses us and inspires us. In intellectual and

educational activity, the virtue of humility is also indispensable, since it protects

us from the pride which bars the way to truth.

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4. ConClusions

In our opinion, the university, through the promotion of economic and

social development, conict prevention, and the search for truth, is an institu-

tion capable of generating the necessary dialogue for encounter among civili-

zations. We also believe that Catholic-inspired universities can have a leading

role in this process.

The evangelizing mission of the Church is fundamental and, to this end,

ecclesiastical universities and colleges were established. Given its impor-

tance, Pope Francis promulgated in December 2017 the Apostolic Constitu-

tion Veritatis gaudium. In it, he clearly insists on the important mission that

the Church currently has, which is, “[t]oday our proclamation of the Gospel

and the Church’s doctrine are called to promote a culture of encounter, in gen-

erous and open cooperation with all the positive forces that contribute to the

growth of universal human consciousness” (n. 4b).

Encounter will be achieved through dialogue, which Pope Paul VI ex-

pressly referred to in Populorum progressio and in which the Magisterium of

the Church has insisted on over the years.

In his trip to Peru in January 2018, Pope Francis pointed out how the

Church wants to promote the creation of institutional spaces for respect, rec-

ognition, and dialogue among peoples; intercultural dialogue. Therefore, edu-

cation –which is able to aid in intercultural dialogue– is understood as funda-

mental, and for this reason, the Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium is

published with updated guidelines regarding how ecclesiastical universities

and colleges, through the education offered, must contribute to the evangeliz-

ing mission of the Church, encouraging intercultural dialogue at the highest

level.

5. reFerenCes

Bustelo, P. (1998). Teorías contemporáneas del desarrollo económico. Madrid: Sín-

tesis.

Cuadrado, J. (2018). Las Naciones Unidas y los sistemas de alerta temprana: Lec-

ciones desde el escenario del África Occidental. Revista Española de Ciencia

Política 46, 175-198.

Daviet, B. (2016). Revisar el principio de la educación como bien público. Documen-

tos de Trabajo UNESCO.

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Díaz, T.-Alemán, P. A. (2008). “La educación como factor de desarrollo”. Revista

Virtual Universidad Católica del Norte, 23, 1-15.

Łukasz P. (2014). “Review of theories and models of economic growth”. Comparative

Economic Research. Central and Eastern Europe 17(1).

Mastromatteo, G. and Solari, S. (2014). “The idea of ‘common good’ and the role

of the state in present day social economics”. Rivista Internazionale de Scienze

Social 124, 85-102.

Musgrave, R. A. (1969). Provision for social goods. In Margolis, J.-Guitton, H. (eds.),

Public Economics: An Analysis of Public Production an Consumption an their

Relations to de Private Sectors, London: Macmillan.

Musgrave, R. A. (1967). Teoría de la Hacienda Pública. Madrid: Editorial Aguilar.

Pope Benedict XVI (2009), Interpretación, contemplación, acción. In Poupard, P.

(ed.), Universidad católica: ¿nostalgia, mimetismo o nuevo humanismo? Conv-

ersaciones universitarias sobre la identidad de la universidad católica del siglo

XXI. Madrid: Instituto J. H. Newman, 145-168.

Pope Benedict XVI (2011). Meeting with young university professors. Address of his

Holiness Benedict XVI.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/it.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Pope Francis (2015). Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on

Care for our Common Home.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/it.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Pope Francis (2018). Veritatis gaudium. Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father Francis

on Eclesiastical Universities and Faculties.

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/

01/29/180129c.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Pope Francis (2018). Meeting with indigenous people of Amazonia. Address of the

Hoy Father.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2018/january/documents/

papa-francesco_20180119_peru-puertomaldonado-popoliamazzonia.html (last

accessed: 2020/04/07).

Pope John Paul II (1990). Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Apostolic Constitution of the Supreme

Pontiff John Paul II on Catholic Universities.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/it.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Pope John Paul II (1998). Encyclical letter Fides et Ratio of the Supreme Pontiff John

Paul II to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Relationship Between Faith

and Reason.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/it.html (last accessed: 2020/04/07).

Pope Paul VI (1968). Populorum progressio. Encyclical on the Development of Peo-

ples.

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Samuelson, P. (1954). “The pure theory of public expenditure”. The Review of Eco-

nomics and Statistics 4, 387-389.

Sebastián, F. (2009). La universidad católica en el mundo laicista. In Poupard, P. (ed.),

Universidad católica: ¿nostalgia, mimetismo o nuevo humanismo? Conversa-

ciones universitarias sobre la identidad de la universidad católica del siglo XXI.

Madrid: Instituto J. H. Newman, 91-105.

Sharipov, I. (2015). Contemporary economic growth models and theories: A literature

review. In Ces working papers 7/3. Iasi: Centre for European Studies. Alexandru

Ioan Cuza University, 759-773.

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THE CULTURE OF THE ENCOUNTER

shAun riordAn

Behold,

A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;

Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Wilfred Owen: The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

1. the Culture oF the enCounter

The culture of the encounter seeks to promote understanding and dia-

logue among people from different religious backgrounds, specically among

believers in the three “religions of the book”: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

In his chapter in this book “The Culture of Encounter Diplomacy: A New

Diplomacy for the 21st Century”, Mario Torres

argues that the culture of

encounter represents a new approach to diplomacy. In this chapter II will ex-

plore the relationship between the culture of encounter and more traditional

diplomacy. I will explore both diplomacy and the culture of encounter in terms

of Wittgenstainʼs

concept of the language game and Lebensform (life form),

and how these can impose limitations as well openings. Finally, the chapter

1. Torres, M. (2020). The Culture of Diplomacy: A Diplomacy for the 21st Century (chapter II).

2. Wittgenstein, L. (1978): Philosophical Investigations. Basil Blackwell.

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SHAUN RIORDAN

will consider how the culture of the encounter and diplomacy can complement

each other in confronting the key global issues of the 21

century.

The culture of the encounter seeks to promote understanding rather than

conict among the believers of the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Ju-

daism and Islam. Key is the concept of encounter rather than confrontation. In

the encounter, the different participants engage with each other, trying to see

the world through the eyes of the other. This exercise in empathy, understand-

ing how the other feels about the world, the otherʼs experience of the world,

rather than sympathy, necessarily sharing the views of the other, or the otherʼs

experience of the world, lies at the core of the encounter. It also lies at the core

of inter-religious dialogue.

The encounter between believers of different reli-

gions does not mean that those believers give up core parts of their belief, or

must accept the beliefs of the other. This would amount to conversion, not en-

counter, sympathy, not empathy. It is through the empathetic activity of seeing

the world through the eyes of the other that the participants in the encounter

can nd the shared elements, those values or views that they hold in common,

that can enable dialogue to begin. It is the common elements underlying the

Abrahamic religions, the belief in a single personal deity, the shared text of

the Old Testament and the consequent sharing of key religious leaders and

prophets, that facilitate the development of the encounter between believers in

these religions. Other chapters in this book explore the different aspects of the

culture of the encounter, and the different activities undertaken to promote it,

including the activities of the Scholas movements and the various intra-faith

initiatives promoted by the Holy Father and his predecessors.

2. diPlomACy

What struck the author of this chapter when reading the other chapters of

this book were the parallels between the culture of the encounter and an older

tradition of diplomacy, especially the centrality of seeing the world through

the eyes of the other (a skill that a current generation of western diplomats

seems to have lost). A key debate in diplomatic studies at the moment centres

3. Francis (2013a). Audience with the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See. Address of Pope

Francis. Holy See.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/march/documents/papa-

francesco_20130322_corpo-diplomatico.html (last accessed: 2019/09/23).

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WITTGENSTEIN AND A DIPLOMAT WALK INTO THE CULTURE OF THE ENCOUNTER

on the nature of diplomacy and diplomats. A plethora of new “diplomacies”

has emerged in recent years, ranging from education and science diplomacy to

digital and cyber diplomacy.

Sports diplomacy advances the role of sport in

diplomacy, while gastrodiplomacy appears to promote the idea of diplomacy

based around food (hardly new – food and drink has always played a key

role in the lives of diplomats – the infamous diplomatic cocktails and dinner

parties).

The word “diplomacy” is commonly applied to a broad range of

situations, including family disputes. The concept of “diplomacy” is in danger

of being emptied of all meaning. If everyone is a diplomat, then nobody is.

If everything is diplomacy, then nothing is. The problem is compounded by

the irruption into diplomatic studies of a broad range of new non-state actors,

including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), corporations, organised

crime, terrorist groups and civil society groups. Their participation in interna-

tional debates and relations has been facilitated by the evolution of new digital

communication technologies. Which of these new non-state actors could or

should be regarded as diplomats? Which of their activities could be regarded

as diplomatic?

One approach is to identify diplomacy with the promotion of peace and

international understanding. Any actor promoting international peace and un-

derstanding could then be described as a diplomat, and any activity promoting

international peace and understanding could be described as diplomatic. The

trouble is that historically this is inaccurate. Diplomats have not, and do not,

promote international peace and understanding. They promote the interests

of their countries, as incapsulated in the foreign policy evolved by their gov-

ernments. If this leads to international peace and understanding, so much the

better. But diplomats can equally seek to provoke conict if their governments

believe it in their interest. Thus, British diplomacy in 2003 sought not to avoid

war in Iraq, but rather to create a more favourable international environment

in which the war could be fought (it failed). Equally, diplomacy does not cease

once conict or war breaks out. Diplomats seek out new allies, try to steal al-

lies from the rival, and ultimately try to negotiate the terms of the end of the

conict.

4. https://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/stop-inventing-new-diplomacies (last accessed:

2020/04/07).

5. Varè, D. (1938). The Laughing Diplomat. John Murray.

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SHAUN RIORDAN

An alternative approach

is to seek to list the activities undertaken by

diplomats: political reporting, international negotiations, representation, com-

mercial promotion, consular protection etc. Anyone undertaking these activi-

ties at an international level would count as a diplomat. The trouble is that

many people carry out these roles individually at an international level that

we would not want to call a diplomat, and who would not thank us for call-

ing them a diplomat: journalists, businessmen, insurance agents, or corporate

executives. Suggestions that it is not the individual activities that count, but

rather the combination of these roles that marks out a diplomat, does not work

either. Many diplomats will carry out only one of these roles throughout their

diplomatic career (e.g. a consul). A narrower approach is to say simply that

a diplomat is dened as set out in the Vienna Convention on diplomatic rela-

tions. In other words, the concept of diplomat is limited to those accredited as

diplomats according to the provisions of that Convention, and diplomacy to

their activities. But that seems unnecessarily narrow. It would exclude many

whom we would want to call diplomats (e.g. ofcials working in foreign min-

istries between postings). It would also result in the paradox that whether or

not someone is a diplomat is decided not by their own government, but the

government of the country to which they are posted (which would accredit

them as a diplomat).

3. the internAtionAl Community oF diPlomAts

Something is missing. Neither diplomat nor diplomacy are looking useful

concepts. Paul Sharp

sought a way out of the impasse by building on Hed-

ley Bullʼs

concept of the international community. Sharp posits an interna-

tional community of diplomats. This international community of diplomats,

although representing different nationalities and different national objectives,

shares certain “diplomatic ways of seeing the world” that can facilitate their

ability to manage international issues and crises. The key point is that being a

diplomat is not about what you do, but the way that you do it, and the world

view that reects. An important concept here is socialisation. Diplomats are

6. https://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/would-real-diplomacy-please-stand (last accessed:

2020/04/07).

7. Sharp, P. (2009). The Diplomatic Theory of International Relations. Cambridge.

8. Bull, H. (2002). The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. Palgrave.

211

WITTGENSTEIN AND A DIPLOMAT WALK INTO THE CULTURE OF THE ENCOUNTER

socialised into the international community in a way that often means they

have more in common with fellow diplomats than with their own countrymen.

In part this reects the shared experiences of working as a diplomat abroad,

and the alienation that can produce, not only in the diplomatic bubble abroad,

but also when returning to their home country. Diplomats always see every-

where, home and abroad, as an outsider, “from the outside”.

If this approach is correct, it allows us to identify a particularly diplomat-

ic approach to dealing with international affairs, which goes beyond simply

listing what diplomats do. It is not what diplomats do, but how they do it and

the world view this reects. Anyone who shares this diplomatic approach can

be called a diplomat, and any activity that reects this diplomatic approach

can be described as diplomacy. Although it must to some extent be subjective,

we can try to list the key elements in this diplomatic approach, the elements

that diplomats in general share:

— A willingness to accept “good-enough” outcomes rather than insist on

optimal solutions;

— A tendency to manage problems rather than necessarily solve them;

— An analytical approach built around identifying the intentions of “the

other”, seeking to understand not only want the other intends, and

why, but also how he interprets our intentions;

— The development of global networks of information and inuence

among both state and non-state actors;

— The constructions of “coalitions of the willing” built on shared pre-

ferred outcomes rather than necessarily shared values and ideologies;

— The socialisation of state and non-state actors into an international

community;

A constructivist approach to international law, which recognises that the

motivation for state and non-state actors to obey international laws lies in a

combination of self-interest, self-perception (and how they want to be percei-

ved by others) and a desire to remain a part of the international community.

An important aspect that ows from the socialisation of diplomats into an

international community of diplomats, and the elements identied above, is

the ability of diplomats to keep talking in situations when others cannot. There

9. Riordan, S. (2019). Cyberdiplomacy: Managing Security and Governance Online. Polity.

10. Riordan, S.-Torres, M. (2020). Science Diplomacy, IEEI Global Policy Perspective Report.

212

SHAUN RIORDAN

is an almost amoral aspect to diplomacy that enables diplomats to maintain

the conversation with other diplomats, even when they radically disagree, or

even when their governments are in conict. Often these conversations are

unacknowledged (even, or perhaps especially to their own governments). One

of the major advantages of the UN headquarters building in New York is the

myriad of obscure coffee shops and bars where these conversations can be

maintained far from prying and hostile eyes. Part of this ability to maintain

the conversation derives from diplomatsʼ ability to put them themselves in

the position of the other, to see the world, including the actions of their own

governments, through the eyes of the rival. To the extent that diplomats can

maintain the conversation with other diplomats in situations when other ac-

tors, e.g. politicians or civil society activists could not, it can be said that

diplomats make their contribution to international peace and understanding,

regardless of the policies of their governments.

4. the Culture oF the enCounter And diPlomACy

At this point we can return to the culture of the encounter and compare it

with this conception of diplomacy. We have seen the importance of the shared

traditions and culture of the Abrahamic religions in facilitating the encounter

in the rst place. But that is only the background that opens up the possibility of

the encounter. If that were in itself sufcient, we would not have experienced

the long history of conict and discriminations among the three religions of

the book which the Holy Father, through the culture of the encounter, is seek-

ing to overcome. The essential part is the empathetic ability to see the world

through the eyes of the other. It is this ability to see the world through the eyes

of the other that allows the participants to identify those common elements,

common experiences, that enable the encounter to ourish. We see similar dy-

namics in the concept of diplomacy and diplomats identied above. The com-

mon experiences of being diplomats, or being socialised into the international

community of diplomats, makes possible what we might call the diplomatic

encounter. But that is not enough. As in the culture of the encounter, what is

essential is the ability to see the world, and the actions of his own govern-

ment, through the eyes of the other. It is this empathetic diplomacy that allows

diplomats to identify shared preferred outcomes, even with countries whose

ideology or values they do not share, which form the basis of international

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WITTGENSTEIN AND A DIPLOMAT WALK INTO THE CULTURE OF THE ENCOUNTER

agreements and, ultimately, international law. The Treat of Westphalia was

not signed in 1648 because Catholics and Protestants suddenly dropped their

religious differences, or thought the other not automatically destined for hellʼs

re, but because they were able to nd sufcient shared preferred outcomes

that enabled them to end the ghting and, ultimately, serve as the basis for

modern international law.

5. lAnGuAGe GAmes And the lebensForm

Wittgensteinʼs concept of the language game offers a framework to ana-

lyse both the culture of the encounter and diplomacy. Wittgenstein

argued

that words did not get their meanings individually, and that individuals did

not learn language by having the meanings “pointed” out to them (at the be-

ginning of the Philosophical Investigations he quotes and argues against St

Augustineʼs recollection of learning language by having the meanings of indi-

vidual words pointed out to him). Rather language is a game where meaning

is governed by the rules of the game. Individuals learn the meaning of words

through being socialised into the language game and acquiring its rules. The

rules of the language game extend beyond purely linguistic and grammatical

rules to social rules of the community in which the language game is played.

We can get a avour of this by reecting on how learning to swear is the hard-

est (and most dangerous) part of learning a foreign language. It is not simply

a question of learning the meaning of the individual swear words, but rather

the social rules which decide when you can and, more importantly, you cannot

use the word. Often the ostensive meaning of the word does not communicate

its offensive nature (I still do not understand why “turtle egg” is an insult in

Chinese). In other words, meaning does not reside in the individual word, but

in the rich network of rules, including social rules, governing the language

game. Wittgenstein argues that each language game amounts to a life form

(Lebensform), or as Heidegger

would say, a way of being in the world.

Sharp

argues that diplomats partake in their own language game, where

meaning is decided by a rich network of social and linguistic rules, and that

11. Wilson, P. H. (2009). Europeʼs Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Yearʼs War. Penguin.

12. Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations.

13. Heidegger, M. Being and Time.

14. Sharp. The Diplomatic Theory of International Relations.

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SHAUN RIORDAN

diplomacy thus amounts to a life form or Lebensform in the Wittgensteinian

sense. This diplomatic language game is distinguished from other approaches

to managing international relations, eg the military, politicians, NGOs, which

all have their own language games with meaning decided by social as well as

linguistic rules. Indeed, it is the social rules, reecting the socialisation of the

diplomat into the international community of diplomats, which differentiates

meanings. These social rules equate to the key elements in the diplomatic ap-

proach identied above, accompanied by the shared experiences of the diplo-

matic life-style. The latter amounts to what Heidegger

would call the earth

in which the diplomatic world, or way of being, is grounded. Sharp illustrates

the socialisation of diplomats through the example of the representatives of

rogue regimes. For example, representatives of the Soviet Union sent abroad

to occupy former Tsarist embassies following the Russian Revolution went not

as diplomats tasked with managing relations with the countries to which they

were posted, but as revolutionaries tasked with overthrowing their host gov-

ernments, violently if necessary (even preferably). Yet by the 1930ʼs, Soviet

diplomats had been socialised into the international community of diplomats to

the extent that the Soviet Ambassador to the Court of St James, Ivan Maisky,

was probably the outstanding foreign diplomat in London at that time.

Wittgensteinʼs concept of the language game can also be used to analyse

the culture of the encounter. In this case the shared culture, the equivalent of

the diplomatʼs nomadic lifestyle, lies in the shared experiences of the three

Abrahamic religions: monotheism, a personal God who takes an interest in

his believers and the common text of the Old Testament. But, as we have

seen throughout history, these common cultural features can lead as easily

to conict as to the encounter. The language game of the encounter arises

when people from the three religions adopt the behavioural elements of the

encounter, above all the empathetic approach that allows them to see the word

through the eyes of the other, to understand how the other experiences the

world. This transforms the culture of the Abrahamic religions into the culture

of the encounter. In doing so, it changes the way in which language is used

in the encounter, generating news rules guiding the way in which words are

used reecting social as well as linguistic and grammatical norms. Thus, the

15. Heidegger, M. (2011). The Origin of the Work of Art, in Basic Writings ed Krell. Routledge.

16. Gorodetsky, G. (2015). The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambassador to the Court of St James 1932-

1943. Yale.

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WITTGENSTEIN AND A DIPLOMAT WALK INTO THE CULTURE OF THE ENCOUNTER

encounter becomes a life form or Lebensform, not just an experience but a way

of experiencing the world. In Heideggerian terms, the encounter becomes a

way of being in the world. The relevance of Heideggerʼs thinking here should

not surprise us. Like the Holy Father, he too was educated in a Jesuit seminary.

6. iF A lion Could tAlk…

But if the philosophy of Wittgenstein provides an intellectual framework

in which we can think about both the practice of diplomacy and the culture of

the encounter, it also offers warnings about the problems that language games

encounter when they run-up against different language games. Wittgenstein fa-

mously commented that if a lion could talk he would not be able to understand

(the philosopher John Gray

cites wildlife park owner John Aspinall saying

that this just showed how little Wittgenstein knew about lions). Wittgensteinʼs

point is that he shares so little culture with the lion that he is unable to under-

stand how the lion experiences the world, that communication between them

would be impossible because they have insufcient common culture. Their

shared experience is insufcient for the rules of the language game to emerge.

Diplomats often seem to have similar communication problems with politi-

cians: “if a politician could speak a diplomat could not understand him”.

This is of course an exaggeration, although it could make for a good car-

toon. However, there is an element of truth. There are signicant differences

between the world views of the politician and the diplomat. They experience

the world in very different ways. Politicians seek to solve problems, diplomats

to manage them. Politicians tend to see international problems in black and

white, whereas diplomats see shades of grey. Politicians often express moral

outrage, real or simulated, at the behaviour of other international actors, while

diplomats focus on keeping the conversation going. These different ways of

being in the world, difference in Lebensform, inevitably lead to different rules

for using language in the language game. The key frustration for diplomats

focuses on empathy. As discussed above, the empathetic analysis whereby the

diplomat can see the world through the eyes of the other, understand not only

how the rival understands and experiences the world but also how the rival

17. Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations.

18. Gray, J. (2007). Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. FSG Adult.

216

SHAUN RIORDAN

sees the actions of the diplomatʼs own government, is a (the) key element in

the diplomatic approach to international relations. However, this analytical at-

tempt to understand the thinking and behaviour of a rival is often interpreted

by politicians as the diplomat defending or supporting the rivalʼs behaviour.

In the language of foreign policy, the diplomat is accused of “going native”,

his credibility undermined.

7. TheDisaPPearinganThroPologisT:TheDangersoFsocialisaTion

Another way of thinking about the confrontation of different language

games is the parable of the disappearing anthropologist. The anthropologist is

studying an aboriginal tribe. But the fundamental cultural differences between

the anthropologist and the tribe undermines the formerʼs ability to understand

it. His way of experience of the world is so different that he cannot understand

the rules of the tribeʼs language game. So, he lives with the tribe, becoming

ever more like them. Eventually his experience of the world is sufciently

similar that he can take part in their language game, understanding and shar-

ing their way of being in the world. The trouble is that by becoming one of the

tribe he has stopped being an anthropologist. He has lost the critical thinking

that got in the way of his understanding of the tribe. To understand the lion, he

has become one. The anthropologist has disappeared.

This again is an exaggeration. Yet again there is a kernel of truth. The

danger for the diplomat is that he can be socialised out of being a diplomat into

another kind of international actor. This is not necessarily a problem for the

individual diplomat. The anthropologist may be happy living as a member of

the aboriginal tribe. But if there is a specically diplomatic way of engaging

with international affairs, and it is thought that this diplomatic approach has

value in promoting international stability, there is a problem if large numbers

of diplomats are socialised out of being diplomats. The diplomatic approach to

international engagement disappears, decreasing international stability as non-

diplomatic actors compete for “optimal solutions” in a black and white world

of mutual expressions of moral outrage. No longer interested in the way that

the rival sees or experiences the world, international actors push ahead with

their optimal strategies, heedless of the consequences or the reactions of others.

Playing chess with yourself is very satisfying, in the sense that you always win,

but it is no preparation for playing against competitors in a chess tournament.

217

WITTGENSTEIN AND A DIPLOMAT WALK INTO THE CULTURE OF THE ENCOUNTER

There is evidence in recent years of diplomats being socialised into other

ways of engaging with the international environment. On the one hand, the

corporate world has socialised diplomats into seeing the world purely in terms

of commercial interests and promotion. This tendency has been reinforced by

the economic and nancial crisis and the pressure on foreign ofce budgets.

Foreign ministries have tended to defend themselves by emphasising their

role in promoting national commercial interests and supporting a countriesʼ

companies abroad, downplaying their political and geopolitical work. Dip-

lomats are socialised into being little more than marketing advisors, losing

key diplomatic capacities (as western countries are now discovering to their

cost, as old geopolitical agendas return to the fore). On the other hand, diplo-

mats have been increasingly been socialised by NGOs and other civil society

bodies to behave as humanitarian actors. Eschewing the relative amorality

which enabled them to maintain conversations, and thus contribute to stabil-

ity, when others were unwilling to do so, diplomats increasingly express their

own moral outrage, competing in their aspirations to virtue and its recogni-

tion by the press. A recent British ambassador to the UN, instead of discreetly

building inuence and support for British policy inside the General Assembly

and Security Council, specialised in expressing outrage in press conferences

and ouncing out of meetings with countries of whom her government disap-

proved. It is not clear the disappearance of the one group of professionals who

contributed to reducing volatility, calm and communication will improve the

behaviour of rogue states of increase international stability.

If the culture of the encounter does function as a Wittgensteinian language

game, or Lebensform, we would expect it to encounter similar problems to the

diplomats. Bearing in mind that the cultural earth in which the encounter is

grounded is the Abrahamic religions –the personal monotheistic God and the

old testament– it would be likely to have problems when confronting other

language games which do not share this cultural grounding. For example, how

would the culture of the encounter deal with religious faiths which believe in

multiple Gods, or with those who do not believe in God at all? Would there be

sufcient shared culture to allow the empathetic understanding of the way that

the other sees or experiences the world? Would, for example, the atheistic oth-

er be sufciently willing to accept the possibility, or validity, of belief in God

to allow the encounter to take place? A key point here is that the success of the

encounter does not depend on one side alone. Just as the politician may dis-

miss the diplomat for “going native”, the atheist may dismiss the Abrahamic

218

SHAUN RIORDAN

believer as a religious fantasist. The pluritheistic believer may dismiss him as

rigid and narrow minded. If the atheistic lion could talk, would the Abrahamic

believer be able to understand him. As with the diplomats and the politicians

this is an exaggeration. Politicians and diplomats can understand each other,

as can Abrahamic believers and atheists or believers in multiple Gods. But the

scope for misunderstandings arising from different social and cultural rules in

the language games increases.

The culture of the encounter also faces similar socialisation challenges as

the international community of diplomats when confronting other language

games. If the danger for diplomats is to be socialised into corporate priorities

or the moral outrage of humanitarian activists, the danger for the culture of

the encounter is to prioritise the cultural encounter with non-believers over the

integrity of the cultural earth in which the encounter is grounded. The enthu-

siasm for communication with the non-believing other undermines the Abra-

hamic beliefs in which the culture of the encounter is grounded. Relevance to

modern society is prioritised over relevance to God. If the socialised diplomat

abandons his diplomatic role to promote narrow commercial interests or gain

credibility with humanitarian activists, the socialised believer abandons that

belief to appear relevant to the secular world.

8. ConFliCtinG internAtionAl AGendAs

The international environment at the beginning of the 21

century has

been marked by the development of two conicting agendas: The New Inter-

national Security Agenda (NISA) and the more traditional geopolitical agen-

da. The NISA emerged after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US. It was realised

that traditional denitions of international security, based on the security and

stability of the state, did not cover international terrorism. The 9/11attacks did

not threaten the security or stability of the US as a state actor. But it seemed bi-

zarre to exclude international terrorism from the international security agenda.

International security was therefore re-thought in terms of the security and

economic welfare of the individual within the state.

This included interna-

tional terrorism within the international security agenda, but also opened up

19. Riordan, S. (2004): Dialogue-based Public Diplomacy: A New Foreign Policy Paradigm? Cling-

endael Discussion Papers in Diplomacy 95.

219

WITTGENSTEIN AND A DIPLOMAT WALK INTO THE CULTURE OF THE ENCOUNTER

that agenda to a whole range of other issues, ranging from poverty and migra-

tion to climate change and pandemic disease. As time went by, it became clear

that these issues were genuine threats to international security, as is now only

too apparent with climate change and the coronavirus. Interestingly the issues

of the NISA shared certain points in common: the individual issues were inter-

related –they could not be tackled individually but required holistic strategies;

no single country, or even region, could tackle them alone– they required col-

laboration at a global level; and governments were not the only actors, or even

the most important actors – they required international collaboration extend-

ing beyond governments to NGOs and other civil society groups. Work began

on developing new approaches to diplomacy to deal with the NISA.

Just as diplomats, European diplomats in particular, were focusing their

attention on the NISA, and reconguring themselves to deal with it, more tra-

ditional geopolitical agendas returned with a vengeance. Russia used military

force to detach South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia in 2008 and Crimea

from Ukraine in 2014. China began constructing articial islands to assert its

claims to the South China Sea. The US invasions of Iraq resulted in a new

competition for regional hegemony between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Balance

of power and zones of inuence were back. Diplomats found it increasingly

difcult to manage the NISA and the geopolitical agendas at the same time.

Geopolitical agendas are short term and urgent. The NISA is long term and

existential. The short term and urgent tend to force the long term and existen-

tial off foreign ministry agendas. Most foreign ministers will be around for the

consequences of geopolitical miscalculation. Few are still likely to be around

if they get the NISA wrong.

9. the Culture oF the enCounter And diPlomACy ConFront the 21

Century

The conicting New International Security and Geopolitical agendas pose

serious challenges to both the culture of the encounter and the international

community of diplomats. Both will need to escape their comfort zones, move

outside their Lebensforms, to deal with other communities with different

20. Riordan, S. (2008). The New International Security Agenda and the Practice of Diplomacy. In

Cooper et al. (ed.). Global Governance and Diplomacy: Worlds Apart? Palgrave.

220

SHAUN RIORDAN

language games and different social and cultural rules governing their use of

language. If the lions begin to talk, the encounter and diplomacy must nd

ways of understanding them. Diplomats must engage with a raft of new in-

ternational actors, including political leaders, NGOs, major corporations and

civil society actors, developing an effective multi-stakeholder diplomacy in

the process. The culture of the encounter must move outside the believers in

the Abrahamic tradition to engage with both those who believe in many gods

and those who believe in none. In doing so, both diplomacy and the culture

of the encounter will depend heavily on their ability to see the world through

the eyes of the other, to empathetically understand how the other experiences

the world. But they will need to remain grounded in the earth of their respec-

tive cultures if they not to be socialised into something else, something alien

to their original identity, which will undermine or even negate entirely their

ability to make their key contribution. As diplomats struggle to manage the

two conicting agendas at the same time, they will need those imbued with the

Abrahamic traditions and the culture of the encounter to remind them of the

centrality of the long-term and existential, and warn them of being distracted

by the short term and urgent. The international community of diplomats and

the culture of the encounter are in many ways similar. They have different and

complementary roles to play in managing the crises of the 21

century. But

both are centred in dialogue and understanding the other.

221

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

AbrAhAm (ArmAndo) skorkA, Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences (1979), Univer-

sidad de Buenos Aires; Ordination, Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano

(1973); Honorary Professor of Jewish Law, Universidad del Salvador, Argen-

tina (1984); Doctor of Hebrew Letters, Honoris Causa, The Jewish Theological

Seminary of America (2011); Doctor, Honoris Causa, Ponticia Universidad

Católica Argentina (2012); Doctor of Theology Honoris Causa, Sacred Heart

University, Faireld, Connecticut (2013). Rabbi Emeritus of the Benei Tikva

Congregation (1976-2018) and Rector Emeritus of the Seminario Rabínico

Latinoamericano (1996-2017), Buenos Aires. Currently University Professor,

Saint Joseph´s University, Philadelphia. Author of many articles and several

books, including On Heaven and Earth with the current Pope Francis (2010,

English 2013).

AleJAndro GAroFAli ACostA is Ambassador of Uruguay to the Swiss Confed-

eration and Permanent Representative to the Universal Postal Union, based in

Bern. Since 2014, he is researcher of the European Institute of International

Studies. He has been Ambassador to Ethiopia and Kenya as well as Perma-

nent Representative of Uruguay to the African Union, the UN Environment

Program – UNEP, UN-Habitat and UNECA, resident in Addis Ababa. Previ-

ously, Amb. Garofali served in various Uruguayan diplomatic positions in the

United States of America, in Sweden and other Nordic and Baltic countries.

He holds a PhD from the Catholic University of Avila, Spain, in Sustainable

Development (Law and Economics) and a Master of Business Administration

and Management from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain. He

graduated in International Relations from the University of the Republic of

Uruguay. He has been Lecturer at the University ORT (School of International

Studies and Business Administration), the Catholic University (Social Sci-

ences and Administration School) and the University of the Republic.

AlvAro AlbACete is Deputy Secretary General at KAICIID. From February

2014, Ambassador Albacete served KAICIID as special advisor to the Secre-

tary-General for public diplomacy. Previously, he was Ambassador at Large

222

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

dealing with interreligious and intercultural dialogue for the Spanish Ministry

of Foreign Affairs. He has worked for the European Commission in Bosnia-

Herzegovina as an advisor in the area of good government for the Presidency

of the State and the Ministry of European Integration between 1999 and 2002.

He has also worked for the Inter-American Development Bank in Argentina,

Bolivia, Panama and Paraguay, and has been a guest professor of the École

Nationale dʼAdministration of France. He was trained in Driving Government

Performance by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Universi-

ty. Amb. Albacete has served in diverse positions in the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs of Spain, including the Division for the United Nations, Director of

Parliamentary Affairs, Deputy Director of the Minister’s Cabinet and Ambas-

sador.

Antonio núñez y GArCíA-sAúCo, ambassador of Spain. He is President of the

European Institute of International Studies. He has a long career as diplomat.

He has been Ambassador to the United Nations, Sweden, Australia, New Zea-

land, the South Pacic States, Romania and Equatorial Guinea. He holds a

PhD. in Philosophy, Master in Security and Defense, Degree in Law, Degree

in Political and Economic Sciences from the Complutense University of Ma-

drid (Spain). Diploma in High European Studies; Diploma in International

Organizations; Diploma in International Law, International Relations and Di-

plomacy. Universities: King Juan Carlos University (Madrid), Hamburg (Ger-

many), Nancy and Strasbourg (France), Holborn College (United Kingdom),

School for International Ofcials, Diplomatic Academy (Madrid).

ConCePCión AlbArrÁn FernÁndez is Vice rector for Academic Planning and

Research at Catholic University of Ávila “Saint Teresa of Jesus” (Spain). She

has a PhD at the Autonomous University of Madrid and a degree in Economy.

She has been Director of the UCAV Public Economy Research Group and a

visiting professor at the Catholic University of Angola.

dAvid sAnz bAs is Lecturer of Economics and Director of International Re-

lations at the Catholic University of Ávila “Saint Teresa of Jesus” (Spain).

He was Dean of the Faculty of Social and Legal Sciences and Director of

the University Masterʼs Degree in Business Internationalization and Foreign

Trade at the Catholic University of Ávila. He has been a Member of the Mont

Pelerin Society and the Mises Institute. He has participated in several teach-

ing innovation projects, conferences and seminars in the area of Economics.

223

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

He has a Degree and a PhD in Economic Sciences at King Juan Carlos Uni-

versity.

José Antonio CAlvo Gómez is Academic Director of the European Institute of

International Studies, based in Salamanca and Stockholm; and Director of the

Rufni Chair, with focus on research of the Bible and Social Doctrine of the

Church, at the Pontical University of Salamanca. He holds a PhD in History

at the University of Salamanca and a PhD in Theology at the Pontical Uni-

versity of Salamanca, with complementary studies in Archiving, at the Vatican

School, and Archaeology, at the Pontical Institute of Christian Archaeology,

in Rome. He is Research Fellow at the Biblical and Archaeological Span-

ish Institute (Jerusalem) and the Spanish Institute of Ecclesiastical History

(Rome). He has had research stays in Israel, Italy, United Kingdom and the

United States of America.

JuAn iGnACio ArrietA oChoA de ChinChetru is Titular Bishop of Civitate, Sec-

retary of the Pontical Council for Legislative Texts at the Holy See. He was

Dean of the Faculty of Canon Law at the Pontical University of the Holy

Cross (Italy), Dean of the Institute of Canon Law of Saint Pius X in Venice

(Italy) and Professor of Canon Law at the University of Navarra (Spain). He

held the positions of Canon Prelate of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Legal Sec-

retary of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, Judge of the Eccle-

siastical Tribunal of the State of the Vatican City, and served as a consultor of

the Congregation for the Clergy, the Pontical Council for the Family and the

Pontical Council for Legislative Texts. He is priest for the Prelature of the

Holy Cross and holds doctorates in canon law and jurisprudence.

lArs Anders Arborelius OCD (Order of Discalced Carmelites), Cardinal of

Sweden and Bishop of Stockholm. Cardinal Arborelius is member of the Con-

gregation for the Clergy, the Congregation for the Oriental Churches and the

Pontical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in the Holy See. Cardinal

Arborelius entered the Carmelite monastery in Norraby (Sweden), took per-

petual vows in Bruges (Belgium) and was ordained priest in Malmö (Swe-

den). He studied theology and philosophy in Bruges and Rome. In Rome,

he obtained a licentiate in spirituality at The Pontical Theological Faculty

“Teresianum” and Master of Arts in Modern Languages (English, Spanish and

German) at Lund University (Sweden). In 1998, he was appointed Bishop

of Stockholm by Pope John Paul II and, in 2017, Pope Francis created him

224

About the AuthoRS

Cardinal, the rst ever from Sweden. He is Titular Church in Rome “The Ba-

silica of St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs”.

Lourdes MigueL sáez is Dean of the Faculty of Social and Legal Sciences

and Director of the Chair of Police Studies at the Catholic University of Ávila

“Saint Teresa of Jesus” (Spain), a space reserved for training and research on

issues related to Public, National and Global Security. She holds a PhD in

law by the University Complutense of Madrid, a degree in canon law by the

Pontical University of Salamanca and she is a Rotal Lawyer from the Court

of Rota Matritense, practicing in ecclesiastical courts of Spain and abroad. A

professor for several years of the subject of Social Doctrine of the Church,

taught to students of the Degree in Law.

Mario Torres Jarrín is Director of the European Institute of International

Studies (Sweden), Director of International Relations at the Pontical Univer-

sity of Salamanca (Spain) and Executive Secretary of IBERO-EURO-AMER-

ICA Consortium of Universities. Previously, he was Research Associate and

Adjunct Lecturer in the Chair of International Business and Society Relations

with focus on Latin America at Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-

Nuremberg (Germany) and Scholar Associate, Lecturer and Research Associ-

ate in the Institute of Latin American Studies, as well as, Adjunct Lecturer in

the Department of Romance Studies and Classics, Faculty of Humanities at the

Stockholm University (Sweden). He is Academic Council Member at the Latin

America and Caribbean-European Union Academic Forum; Task Force Mem-

ber of “The Future of Work and Education for the Digital Age” and Task Force

Member of “The Future of Multilateralism and Global Governance”, both task

forces produces communiques and recommendations to the T20/G20 Summits

system. He holds a PhD in history, a MA in European Union Studies, and a BA

in Business Studies from the University of Salamanca (Spain).

MarTa siMonceLLi is Deputy Secretary of the Pontical Scholas Ocurrentes

Foundation, an international organization created by His Holiness Pope Fran-

cis, whose objectives are to promote education for the encounter, through art,

sport and technology. She has a degree in English and Spanish Philology from

the University of Florence (Italy), a master in Innovation from the European

University (Spain). She has directed and coordinated innovative educational

projects for youth, and been a speaker at various international conferences on

education.

225

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

MohaMMed abu-NiMer is Professor in International Peace and Conict Reso-

lution, School of International Service at the American University (United

States) and Senior Advisor at KAICIID, International Center for Intercultural

and Interreligious Dialogue (Austria). He has been working on linking reli-

gious institutions and policy makers in governmental and intergovernmental

agencies such as: UN, EU, OIC, OSCE, etc. He founded and directed the

Center for Peacebuilding and Development, founder of the Salam Institute for

Peace and Justice and co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Peacebuild-

ing and Development. He holds a PhD in Conict Analysis and Resolution

from the George Mason University (United States).

Pedro MeriNo CaMProvíN oar (order of augustiNiaN reColleCts), Prior at

Monasteries of “San Millán de la Cogolla” (Spain). He is founder and Vice

president of the European Institute of International Studies. He was ordained

priest in Rome in 1962. He has a degree in Philosophy at the Pontical Gre-

gorian University (Italy) and the Pontical University of Salamanca (Spain).

He was Professor at the Faculty of Theology “Saint Esteban”, President at

the Institute of Formation and Spirituality, Director at the Residential College

“Saint Thomas of Villanova”. Fray Pedro was Prior, Provincial and Counsel-

lor at OAR, Province “Saint Joseph: Spain, Venezuela and Peru”.

sCott M. thoMas is Senior Lecturer in Politics, Languages & International

Studies in the Centre for Development Studies at University of Bath (United

Kingdom). He taught at universities in the United States, Switzerland, and

South Africa before coming to Bath in 1994 where he is a permanent member

of the teaching staff. Recent speaking engagements include the Dutch and

Canadian foreign ministries, the Pontical Council for Justice and Peace at

the Vatican, the Netherlands Chapter of the Society for International Develop-

ment, the International Federation of Catholic Universities, and Sandhurst, the

Royal Military Academy. He studied in the School of International Service at

the American University, Washington DC before going to the Department of

International Relations at the London School of Economics for his MSc and

PhD.

shauN riordaN is Director of the Chair of Diplomacy and Cyberspace of

the European Institute of International Studies. At the same time, he is Re-

searcher at Charhar Institute in Beijing (China) and the Clingendael Institute

in The Hague (The Netherlands). He has served for 16 years in the British

226

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Diplomatic Service with positions in New York, Taipei, Beijing and Madrid

and has worked in the Department of Counter-Terrorism and Yugoslavia in the

Foreign Service. Tutor at the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNI-

TAR). He has been a Member of the Advisory Panel on Public and Digital Di-

plomacy of the UN Fund for the Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGF)

and of the High-level Security Team at the World Tourism Organization (UN-

WTO). Riordan teaches at the Diplomatic School of Madrid and at the Diplo-

matic Academies of the Dominican Republic, Armenia and Bulgaria.