Overview

To paraphrase Hans Kung: There will be no peace in the world without peace among the world’s religions, and there will be no peace among religions unless we learn to dialogue.

Many societies across the world are witnessing growth in religious partisanship, sometimes side by side with various manifestations of secularization - both negative and positive.

The movement toward polarized fundamentalism can be found in every religious group. Secularism—the belief that religion is dangerous or irrelevant—is an equally challenging phenomenon.

Jesuit universities are distinctive by having both a Catholic commitment and direct access to believers and non-believers alike, Catholics, other Christians, and people of all faiths or none. What role can a Jesuit university play in advancing reconciliation and understanding in a world of religious diversity? How can we help young people avoid the twin extremes of fundamentalism and atheistic, materialist secularization?

Jesuit Higher Education, Interreligious Dialogue, Secularization and Humanism

Coordinators:

Pep Maria Serrano SJ, ESADE, Barcelona.

Description:

An interdisciplinary 2-day workshop involving scholars from USA, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Last symposium:

The work of IAJU in interreligious dialogue has moved forward with anonline symposium held in July 4-5 of 2020. Experts, of our Jesuit universities, from all over the world participated.

This encounter was a good opportunity for the participants to share their interest and scholarly and pastoral and experience in the topics, to discuss the main issues each considered relevant in their own context and to express their hopes for future work under this Task Force.

Next steps:

It is intended that:

  • this initial group can be enlarged to include a wider range of geographical regions, scholars and institutions,
  • the global exchange of good practices as well as of theoretical perspectives will continue in an online forum.

Documents

Position Paper 2018 - Read here

Deusto Assembly Conversations Report - Read here