‘The challenges facing the world have moved on, as has our understanding of the meaning of humanism’, and both have changed throughout history.Footnote 2 These transformations have been accentuated in recent decades in an international environment characterised by rapid change, uncertainty, increased complexity and new trends and global challenges that demand concerted responses.Footnote 3 In the view of some people, scientific and technological improvement could even announce the end of humanism, meaning ‘the end … of a “human-centred” universe. Posthumans will be … self-programmed, self-defined and potentially immortal.’Footnote 4
The approach to death and the fragility of the human condition as supreme evils have become more pressing with the pandemic. This uncertain horizon confirms that the current crisis is directly related to the problems posed by a ‘humanism’ that pretends to build a regnum hominis separated from its necessary ontological foundation. Faced with this enormous challenge, society urgently needs the service to wisdom that education and a humanistic culture provide to address the question of how to live well together in a worthwhile way. Will we continue to defend an ethic of calculating rationality, impervious to responsibility for the common good on a global, and not just national, scale? Our interconnectedness is a fact. It makes us all strong or, on the other hand, vulnerable, depending on our own attitude towards it.
However, the education systems designed for the second half of the twentieth century fail to meet the needs of the knowledge societies of the twenty-first. UNESCO advocates confronting them from a humanistic vision based on a set of universal ethical principles (respect for life and human dignity, equal rights and social justice, cultural and social diversity, human solidarity and shared responsibility for our common future) in which both theocentric and anthropocentric humanisms essentially converge.Footnote 5 Supporting and enhancing the dignity, capacity and well-being of people in relation to each other and to nature should be the essential purpose of education in the twenty-first century.Footnote 6
The aim of this article is to identify this new humanism ‘to build a civilization that is democratic, tolerant, efficient for humanity and each human being, and that respects nature’Footnote 7 through UNESCO's work with culture, in its multifaceted form, as a facilitator of sustainable development, peace and economic progress. This choice was made ‘because humanists have always understood that the soil for a growing and thriving community is culture, with all manifestations of the mind’.Footnote 8 In this context, I will also examine the contribution of religions to the work of UNESCO, and that of the Holy See in particular.
THE QUEST FOR RECOGNITION OF A UNIVERSAL HUMANISM
The bitter lessons learned – but never completely assimilated – after the Second World War forced the international community to revise postulates that had hitherto been set in stone, at least for the Western world. The harsh evidence of the final result – genocides and destruction of entire nations – demonstrated that technological and economic progress does not have the last word and that ‘Western civilisation’ once again debased humankind, despite its boasts of exalting them by appealing to a supposed universal reason: the legacy of the Enlightenment.Footnote 9
It is in this socio-political context that an essential concept for twentieth-century humanism emerged: human dignity, the gateway with which the preamble to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins. The protection of the human being, which is our most precious common good, is today accepted with a certainty that in other times was not always so heartfelt. As Habermas well describes, human dignity configures the portal through which the universal egalitarian substratum of morality is transferred to the realm of law;Footnote 10 it therefore adopts a mediating function in the passage from legal duties to legal requirements. While the internal conceptual link between human rights and human dignity has always existed implicitly or been expressed in religious or metaphysical formulations, only now has it taken on universal legal-political value. This concept made consensus possible for founding the United Nations and for negotiating international human rights treaties in a world split in half by the Cold War.
Since then, ‘human rights constitute a realistic utopia insofar as … they found the ideal of a just society in the institutions of constitutional states’.Footnote 11 That process has been fraught with contradictions that continue to wound humanity. The gap between norms and actual behaviour is everywhere, even between the ‘United Nations human rights policy that disseminates human rights on the one hand and abuses them as a means of legitimising the usual power politics on the other’.Footnote 12 These contradictions are partly due to an as yet unsettled disagreement concerning the grounds for human dignity: are they of an ontological order or do they obey a purely legal rationale?Footnote 13 We are confronted here with ‘the paradox of substance’. The consensus that holds civic life cannot be so devoid of content that it ends up being purely procedural.
There seems to be unanimity in recognising that the justification for human dignity and the rights deriving from it reside in an epistemic dimension beyond the control of the state.Footnote 14 Its formulation, in modern times, responds to the categorical Kantian imperative that people should never be treated as a simple means but as an end in themselves. On this absolute, unconditional point, different ethical and religious traditions converge.Footnote 15 In contrast, the reality is that we are constantly witnessing persistent exclusions of broad sectors of humankind, evident signs of a ‘discard culture’ that violates justice and threatens the peace.Footnote 16 This situation reflects an interpretation of rights that has become entrenched in our political culture, according to which rights are a legitimisation of subjective preferences, and human dignity is identified with the exercise of autonomy to assert alternative lifestyles. The problem, among others, is that only some can ‘afford’ to exercise this autonomy, so that parts of humanity seem to be sacrificed for the benefit of a few who believe themselves worthy of living without limits.Footnote 17 Ultimately, this ideal of freedom distances us from the obligations of a shared democratic project.
This crisis of liberalism extends to the economy, education, culture, science and technology. Hence voices are being raised to give contemporary formulation to the demands of justice in accordance with a substantive vision of the good that would be at the core of all rights and that opposes the absolutisation of individualistic autonomy.Footnote 18 If, as Sandel warns, ‘democracy is nothing more than economics by other means, a mere matter of aggregating our individual interests and preferences, then its ultimate fate does not depend on the moral bonds of citizens’.Footnote 19 Against this consumerist conception of democracy, I argue with Sandel that we need to deliberate with our fellow citizens about the purposes and ends of our political community, about the character of our life together. And for this we need to find not minimums but maximums: the true principles of practical reason – that is, substantive moral principles conducive to the common good – accompanied by the exercise of the corresponding virtues.Footnote 20 Ultimately, passive acceptance of a democratic creed is not enough to make the system work: democracies also require virtues on the part of citizens.
Nevertheless, progress in this area is evident, especially in determining the content of standards to protect human rights and in those international and national mechanisms that guarantee their justiciability. In this sense, UNESCO is one of the few international agencies that best reflect the humanism that inspires the United Nations. UNESCO was founded to embody a culture of lasting and viable peace based on a simple idea: ‘That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed’.Footnote 21 Peace is not gestated ‘based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments’, as history has confirmed, but must be based on ‘the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind’.Footnote 22 This can only be done by predisposing minds to peace through mutual understanding and international co-operation in the fields of education, science, culture and communication, as stated in Article 1 of UNESCO's Constitution.
These humanist values are the philosophical underpinnings of UNESCO and have gained unusual importance in the third millennium due to the increasingly multicultural composition of today's societies. We are witnessing massive population movements between countries at the same time as new barriers and walls are being raised. As the number of wars between states decreases, internal conflicts multiply. Clearly, individuals are more connected, but new inequalities are emerging as well. The question of ‘wanting and learning to live together’ – in short, peaceful co-existence – is becoming increasingly crucial. Today, this lasting peace is based on a number of fundamental principles: justice and democracy, human rights, non-discrimination, equality, inclusion, tolerance and solidarity, rejection of violence, mutual respect and dialogue.Footnote 23
UNESCO AND CULTURAL DEMANDS
Never before have cultural rights and the cultural dimension of human rights overall been so important on the national and international scene.Footnote 24 Today, cultural rights are at the heart of power relations. In the last two decades, conflicts based on collective identity have replaced class interests as sites of political mobilisation, where the fundamental injustice was not economic exploitation but cultural domination. On the one hand, cultural rights have highlighted the need to revise the nation-state model – and the social link it implies – inherited from the modern age as the natural and ultimate form of organising the world. This modern project has a strong colonialist connotation and does not fully fit in with the new patterns of globalisation. Following on from this, the nation-state has as yet been unable to address the identity or ethnic issues that undermine its base or to act as a global culture threatened with new ‘universal values’.Footnote 25 On the other hand, the indivisibility of human rights shows how culture problems are conditioned by other dimensions of human existence that in turn condition culture. This shows that peoples and cultures do not all have the same weight in the balance of globalisation.
The push of globalisation towards a new humanism
Although the main contribution of twentieth-century humanism was to legally recognise and protect the universality of the human being and the equal dignity of people, the twenty-first century is proving that it was a rather abstract universality for some, and Eurocentric or ethnocentric – substitutionalist, as Benhabib calls it – for others.Footnote 26 Consequently, such recognition is not resolved by a simple legal formulation of ‘equal rights’. In short, equality without diversity is not equality. At best, it is incomplete equality; at worst, a parody of equality, because it ends up segregating and excluding.Footnote 27 The main difficulty of the notion of equality therefore lies in knowing what differences need to be taken into consideration when it comes to the recognition, enjoyment or exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms and to integrate them through principles of non-discrimination and diversity.Footnote 28
These questions have sparked an intense debate about justice and political demands for the recognition of identity and difference, at times eclipsing the demands for social equality.Footnote 29 According to Fraser, the demands for redistribution and recognition constitute two mutually interconnected but distinct paradigms of justice. The paradigm of redistribution focuses on socio-economic injustices, whereas the recognition paradigm points to cultural injustices deeply rooted in social patterns of representation, interpretation and communication. Any changes in these patterns have distributive consequences, given that any transformation in the status of these cultural groups can lead to an improvement in their socio-economic future.Footnote 30 For this reason, cultural freedom is increasingly seen as an essential dimension of human development in all its facets, including socio-economic ones.Footnote 31
The reality described above corroborates the fact that humanism is an age-old promise, as well as an idea that is always new, endlessly reinventing itself – as Irina Bokova, a former director-general of UNESCO, states
Respect for cultural diversity is a core element of 21st century humanism. It is a vital constituent during these times of globalization. No single culture has a universal monopoly. Each and every one can contribute to the consolidation of our shared values.Footnote 32
UNESCO's treatment of cultural diversity
UNESCO itself has evolved in its approach to cultural diversity. Chronologically, five major periods can be distinguished.Footnote 33 During the first stage, emphasis was placed on education and knowledge as keys to peace. The terms ‘state’ and ‘nation’ were used interchangeably, and culture was interpreted essentially in terms of historical information, artistic production and external practices that reflected ways of thinking, perceptions or ways of being in the world. The second period was marked by the decolonisation process and the proliferation of independent states. To be consistent, the concept of culture expanded to encompass ‘identity’. The debates of the 1960s on culture and its influence on international relations led to the Declaration of Principles of International Cultural Co-operation, adopted by resolution of the General Conference on 4 November 1966.
In the third stage, this gradual politicisation of culture helped give impetus to the idea of the endogenous development of countries. The link between ‘culture and development’ provided arguments for administrative and financial support to developing countries, which claimed their right to define their ‘own’ development paths in order to participate fully and on an equal footing in international affairs. Until that time and in the post-war context, the issue of intra-societal cultural diversity had often been underestimated. For international organisations, peace among sovereign states was ahead of peace within states. This was especially true in the case of UNESCO, whose constitution prevents it from intervening in the internal affairs of states (see Article 1.3).Footnote 34
The fourth period was characterised by highlighting the link between ‘culture and democracy’, now accentuating tolerance not only among societies but also within them. This resulted in new interest in issues involving the rights of minorities and the co-existence of communitarian communities. The Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies approved at the MONDIACULT Conference held from 26 July to 6 August 1982 contains a definition of culture and its role, thereby showing how the two concepts had evolved since UNESCO's creation.Footnote 35 This effort to balance affirmation and openness represents an important counterweight to the excessive politicisation of cultural identity to the detriment of the search for shared values.Footnote 36 In this new setting, a model of multiculturalism was proposed that allows better preservation of diversity and cultural autonomy within societies, which implies building a new citizenship capable of welcoming people of different cultures and religions.Footnote 37 This therefore accepts that the protection of equal dignity and equal rights must be accompanied by a new inclusive policy.
The early twenty-first century was marked by the attacks of 11 September 2001 and by a rapid and intense process of globalisation not even foreseen in UNESCO's Medium-term Strategy for 1994–2000. This process involved a radical change not only in the economic and technological order but also in how the world was conceived, and called for a redefinition of the type of actions and strategies of both UNESCO and the United Nations (UN) as a whole. In this sense, the Millennium Summit in the year 2000 constitutes a milestone because of the major impetus it gave to the reform of the UN to respond to the new global challenges and the commitments taken on by states in the Millennium Declaration, some of which were especially relevant for the work of UNESCO.Footnote 38 In it, states pledged ‘to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world's people’ and ‘to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, [so that] globalization [is] made fully inclusive and equitable’.Footnote 39 Likewise, tolerance was proclaimed as one of the essential values for international relations in the twenty-first century, but now, abandoning the reticence of the past, it was explicitly accepted that diversity is an asset of humanity.Footnote 40
Protection and promotion of cultural diversity in all its forms was subsequently reinforced through various legal instruments.Footnote 41 The Global Agenda for Dialogue among Civilizations (2001),Footnote 42 the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (2005–2014),Footnote 43 the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015–2024) and the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures (2013–2022), co-ordinated by UNESCO within the UN system,Footnote 44 are good examples of this new international agenda that pursues unprecedented articulations between cultural diversity and universal values. This is all topped off with Agenda 2030, which implements Strategic Development Goals (SDGs) 4.7 and 16 to highlight the importance of managing cultural diversity and bringing cultures closer together as a prerequisite for creating and maintaining peace.
Integration of these postulates into UNESCO activities has been twofold. On the one hand, the organisation proposed, as a matter of urgency, to intensify activities aimed at ensuring respect for, protection of and observance of human rights in order to achieve a ‘globalisation with a human face’ in line with the human rights-based approach taken by all UN agencies in 2003.Footnote 45 On the other hand, by deepening the link between culture and democracy examined in the previous period, special attention is now being paid to the implicit link between national and international ‘culture and security’, thus further highlighting the importance of positive intercultural relations as the foundation of social cohesion and peace.Footnote 46 From this perspective, the cultural dimension of religion and religions themselves are brought to the forefront on the national and international scene.
Religion and culturalisation of political demands
The culturalisation of political claims, alluded to above, finds in religion a powerful marker of cultural identity and difference, an essential component of the way that many citizens think about themselves and the others. For many, mere recognition of equality as human beings is not enough. Such demands for recognition are increasingly being raised in various parts of the world by people who are no longer willing to remain invisible in their own country.Footnote 47
However, these demands are perceived by the hegemonic – now displaced – groups as a threat to their status, which has led to a politics of resentment, accompanied by the emergence of neo-populism, social polarisation and violent reactions that threaten the deliberation and collective action of society as a whole. Some call it the exhaustion of multiculturalism;Footnote 48 others consider that we are, rather, in a new phase of this, in which the recognition of a group that was not on the list of the disadvantaged is simply demanded. Multiculturalism is criticised for not being multicultural enough. This unexpected turn of the argument is a kind of posthumous triumph of the multicultural cause, a revenge based on multicultural logic itself.Footnote 49 ‘In this context, there is a risk of religious beliefs being instrumentalized for the furtherance of political and related agendas, with the potential for precipitating intra-religious conflict as well as dissensions within democratic societies’, as UNESCO recognises.Footnote 50
For some, the answer to these issues lies in a model of democracy based on a political culture of neutrality that eliminates all ethical justification and religious inspiration and excludes religious expression from the public sphere. This model seeks a procedural consensus of values in the public sphere and a pluralism of conceptions of the good in the private sphere. The Projet de loi confortant le respect des principes de la République et de lutte contre le séparatisme, known as the ‘anti-separatism law’, adopted by the French Senate on 12 April 2021, is an example of this model.Footnote 51 The risk of such proposals is that neutrality itself becomes a goal. It goes from being an organising principle to accommodate the religious diversity present in society to becoming a substantive value fused with republican values. Logically, visible religion, at odds with the neutrality of appearance, then appears irremediably in contradiction with republican values. As social consensus and law are aligned under a new exclusionary definition of what it means to be French, neutrality finally becomes the general horizon and social cement of the republic.
This approach entails another, even more dangerous risk for democracy: the government would be the sole authorised interpreter of civic values – republican, in the French case – and thus the master of a powerful tool of social engineering. Where the state in 1905 articulated liberties, it now subjects them to the values that it has defined. Secularism therefore changes its nature: previously it was a regime for the preservation of liberties; now it has become a system for the dissemination of the values defined by the state, a principle of national identity and a system of public security. In this sense, as Portier explains, this project could change the idea of French civil society.Footnote 52 Until now, according to the Waldeck-Rousseau Law of Associations of 1901, ‘associations were seen as vectors of plurality of aspirations for life in civil society’. With this project, however, ‘the state will turn them into transmitters of the values it promotes’. All this implies that the state has a tighter control over the contours of French civil society.
This is precisely where the struggle for recognition lies. A civil culture that defines its humanism through the elimination of the religious component of the human is forced to eliminate even decisive parts of its history: its knowledge, its tradition, its social cohesion.Footnote 53 The result is the elimination of increasingly substantial parts of humanity and of the citizenship from which society itself is formed. Ultimately, the crisis of memory can only engender a cultural crisis. Anchoring ourselves to our past is not determinism, but the condition of our freedom. Therefore, one way to better deal with the tensions between religions would be to give minorities a voice in the construction of the social contract. A deliberative democratic approach to religious freedom, based on non-interference and inclusion, would be better suited to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and vibrant society.Footnote 54
On the other hand, the public relevance of the ethical, cultural and community mediation of religions in their contribution to good culture, public ethics and social cohesion is also recognised and, in this sense, it is assumed that religions can be peacemakers.Footnote 55 This is corroborated by the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, adopted in 2006 in General Assembly Resolution 60/288, and the United Nations Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism, adopted in 2016.Footnote 56
The holy writings and centuries-old traditions of the major religions contain messages of peace and harmony that make an important contribution to peaceful co-existence among individuals, peoples and different civilisations and cultures.Footnote 57 Specifically, Mokrosch, Held and Czada note the following elements of an essentially religious character: the God-given creaturehood of all human beings; the total prohibition of the arbitrary death of a human being; and the supreme commandment of absolute respect for all human life regardless of condition, which inspires ‘the culture of non-violence’.Footnote 58 Moreover, every religion believes in a union of all people founded on the reality of a supreme being, from which follows the conviction of the existence of a universal fellowship of all people regardless of their culture and condition. Similarly, from the ethical point of view, all the writings of the great religions have a version of the ‘golden rule’, which commands us to ‘do unto others as we would have them do unto ourselves’, a principle on which a ‘culture of peace’ can be solidly founded.
So far, UNESCO has almost exclusively taken up matters of religion and culture by protecting tangible and intangible cultural heritage, which undoubtedly embodies identity and belonging. But it is only recently that there has been a growing tendency to attack culture in conflicts within and between states. These conflicts use cultural differences, which often include ethnic and religious differences, to divide societies.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF RELIGIONS TO TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY HUMANISM
Presence and activity of the Holy See at UNESCO
UNESCO's objectives and the Roman Catholic Church's evangelical ideals of justice, freedom and peace are a close enough match in themselves to justify the Church's interest in actively participating in the work of these international bodies.Footnote 59 In particular, the presence of the Apostolic See at UNESCO, as Pope John Paul II said during his visit to the Paris headquarters,
though motivated also by the specific sovereignty of the Holy See – has as its justification above all in the organic and constitutive link which exists between religion in general and Christianity in particular, on the one hand, and culture, on the other hand. This relationship extends to the multiple realities which must be defined as concrete expressions of culture in the different periods of history and all over the world.Footnote 60
The Holy See's growing commitment to multilateral diplomacy is the result of the Second Vatican Council's wish for the Church to be present in the life of nations and is an expression of its apostolic dialogue with humankind.Footnote 61 In the words of Benedict XVI,
it is a sensitive and difficult service, founded on the apparently inert but ultimately prevalent force of the truth, through which the Holy See intends to collaborate in building an international society that is more attentive to the dignity and true needs of the human person.Footnote 62
Unlike in earlier times, the Holy See no longer lays claim to any political pre-eminence in its relations with nations. The Pope presents himself today before civil society and international organisations in which he participates as a ‘voice for the ethical reasoning of humanity’.Footnote 63 But this does not prevent the Holy See from assuming a presence on a par with the other members of the international community – as is in fact the case – as a recipient of the rules of the international system.Footnote 64 Pope Paul VI made these premises clear and unusually forceful in his address to the UN General Assembly on 4 October 1965, barely a year after the Holy See's admission as a permanent observer.
The decisive contribution of the Second Vatican Council
Since that time, there has been an undeniably fruitful reciprocal enrichment between the activity of the Holy See and the work carried out by UNESCO.Footnote 65 The dynamism of the human rights movement paved the way for the Second Vatican Council called by Pope John XXIII and fostered the gradual incorporation of human rights and duties into the pontifical magisterium in a perspective open to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Footnote 66 This rapprochement brought about two major contributions of the Second Vatican Council, neither of which were considered to be very important at the time, but which now prove invaluable both inside and outside the Catholic Church.Footnote 67 These are the Dignitate Humanae Declaration of 7 December 1965 on religious freedom and the Nostra Aetate Declaration of October 1965 on the Church's relations with non-Christian religions.
Both declarations contain key references for the achievement of some of UNESCO's strategic objectives over the last two decades, such as the following: ‘to promote cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and a culture of peace’, ‘to support inclusive social development, foster intercultural dialogue for the rapprochement of cultures and promote ethical principles’ and ‘to empower learners to be creative and responsible global citizens’.Footnote 68 In addition, the provisions of the conciliar documents are particularly useful in promoting and applying education as an essential tool to help prevent violent extremism, as well as in promoting education for peace and human rights and sustainable development.Footnote 69 At UNESCO, this work is carried out within the overall framework of education for world citizenship, one of the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG 4.7) and a priority for both UNESCO and the UN Global Initiative ‘Education Above All’.
Dignitatis Humanae testifies to substantial progress made in ecclesial understanding of the conception of the state and its relationship to religious traditions, civil culture, the legal order and the human person. The issue is crucial because respect for the right to religious freedom is the foundation of respect for other human rights.Footnote 70 As the International Theological Commission put it,
This better understanding of the nature of Christian faith and its implications (drawing upon the roots of Revelation and of the ecclesial tradition) created a new perspective and attitude with regard to certain inferences and applications of the preceding magisterium.Footnote 71
According to this doctrine, freedom of the act of faith in no way means freedom in relation to the truth or the human impossibility of gaining access to it – which would mean shifting religion from its own foundation to the realm of the subjective – but rather the self-determination of each person in conformity with their moral obligation to accept the truth. Consequently, no human authority has the right to intervene, by coercion or pressure, in this option that exceeds the limits of its competence.Footnote 72 Religious freedom is then configured as a need that derives from the orderly and tolerant co-existence between citizens of various religions and ideologies in a public space that the democratic state must manage impartially.Footnote 73
However, faced with the challenges of managing religious diversity in increasingly complex societies, critical voices are raised from the Church denouncing an alleged ideological neutrality of the liberal state that ends up transferring the concept of equality among citizens to that of ethics and culture, democratising them or, in other words, emptying them. But ‘one observes a certain trend in the “morally neutral” State that leads to the control of all human judgments, transforming the State into one that is “ethically-authoritarian”. The original rapport between truth and the free exercise of conscience (in whose name is imposed a censure of every evaluation) finds itself in constant danger. Without regard for the criteria of just public order, this “ethic of the State”, can threaten the legitimate freedom of religious communities to organise themselves according to their principles.’Footnote 74
This ‘ethic of the State’ can never justify indoctrination that would violate the free transmission of religious values through education and teaching.Footnote 75 According to international texts, parents have the right to have their children brought up in accordance with their religious and moral convictions. Therefore, the civil authority must recognise their right to choose schools and other means of education. Nevertheless, not all possible forms of religious experience have the same value because they do not all preserve the universal meaning and common good of being together. The good of living together becomes a treasure for everyone, when everyone cares about living well together.Footnote 76
This brings us to the matter addressed in the second conciliar document: interreligious dialogue, ‘a theme whose importance was not yet envisaged at that time’, as Benedict XVI acknowledged:
It speaks of religions only in a positive way, ignoring unhealthy and distorted forms of religion that from the historical and theological point of view have a great reach; that is why the Christian faith has been very critical of religion from the beginning, from both inside and out.Footnote 77
Nostra Aetate is still considered today the founding document and the Magna Carta of dialogue between the Catholic Church and Judaism.Footnote 78 Through its approval, the Shoah was acknowledged to be a massacre in a Christian and indifferent Europe;Footnote 79 and solid foundations were laid for the Church not only to condemn anti-Semitism but mainly to prevent it through better understanding of the relationship between the two religions, dialogue and education.Footnote 80 These bases constituted a starting point and a real driving force – even with regard to the modification of the declaration's initial approach, which did not originally contemplate Islam, Hinduism and BuddhismFootnote 81 – to travel and promote an increasingly necessary path: that of interreligious dialogue.
Re-founding forms of co-existence: fraternity as a way of life, a method of social action and a school for a new politics
The pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI went a long way in this direction, but I would like to dwell, albeit briefly, on the more recent contributions of Pope Francis. The Pope is setting a clear and determined pace in this direction with his gestures and his magisterium. He has introduced important new concepts in the Church's social doctrine, in particular the idea that ‘everything is connected’ in the encyclical Laudato Si (2015) and ‘social friendship’ in the encyclical Fratelli Tutti (2019).Footnote 82 Both encyclicals orient Catholic social teaching in a new direction, appealing not so much to high-level agreements as to inter-religious co-operation, the mobilisation of civil society and a broad-based drive towards a more united social consensus that can exert public pressure on the abusive uses of power in any of its facets and manifestations. The Pope considers that true revolutions start from below, where new logics are hatched, even in the work of everyday life.Footnote 83 Elsewhere, he concludes that ‘This vast and pressing task requires … a radical paradigm shift, or rather – I will say – a bold cultural revolution.’Footnote 84 He therefore advocates a radical re-founding of our ways of living together and of our social projects built on what he calls the ‘culture of encounter’.Footnote 85
In Fratelli Tutti, the Pope explains that ‘To speak of a “culture of encounter”, means that we, as a people, should be passionate about meeting others, seeking points of contact, building bridges, planning a project that includes everyone. This becomes an aspiration and a style of life. The subject of this culture is the people, not simply one part of society that would pacify the rest with the help of professional and media resources.’Footnote 86 But this social peace is laborious, handcrafted; it requires generating processes that build a people that knows how to accept differences.Footnote 87 ‘All this calls for the ability to recognize other people's right to be themselves and to be different. This recognition, as it becomes a culture, makes possible the creation of a social covenant.’Footnote 88
True encounter produces a great transformation because, without undermining one's own identity, it enables one to look at it from another angle, from a perspective never before imagined. It necessarily requires the recognition of the dignity of the other as a gift from God and listening to their reasons and arguments, in order to be able to ‘acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs’, transcending prejudices and clichés.Footnote 89 The culture of encounter requires the audacity to come out of oneself and one's own approaches, to question and be wounded by the presence of the other, always ready to learn.Footnote 90 The Pope concludes that ‘to persevere in the struggle to promote a “culture of encounter” … requires us to place at the centre of all political, social and economic activity the human person, who enjoys the highest dignity, and respect for the common good’.Footnote 91
The Pope assumes that religious traditions are a source of inspiration for fostering a culture of encounter based on the promotion of sincere and respectful dialogue.Footnote 92 A reflection of this ‘new strategy’ of interreligious co-operation is the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Common Coexistence, signed in Abu Dhabi on 4 February 2019 by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb.Footnote 93 During the meeting, the Pope stated clearly that ‘there is no alternative: either we build the future together or there will be no future’. This is the first official pontifical document dedicated to dialogue between Catholics and Muslims, in which it lays out the intention to declare ‘the adoption of the culture of dialogue as a path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard’. Indeed, the Declaration not only opens new horizons for Christian–Muslim dialogue: Irina Bokova has called it a ‘foundational ethical document of our time’.
The main merit of both the Abu Dahbi Declaration and Fratelli Tutti is to have constructed a solid discourse in which theocentric and anthropocentric humanisms can converge without difficulty in the construction of a ‘culture of reciprocal respect’. The Pope invites us to dream ‘as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all’.Footnote 94
The first mandate for a believer is to build a human world, a society worthy of that name. Its meaning, for believers, rests on the double horizontal and vertical dimension of the transcendent meaning of life, which challenges them to go beyond themselves, to a life that is not closed in by individual interests.Footnote 95 The natural social disposition of men and women also makes it evident that the origin of society is not found in a ‘contract’ or ‘agreement’, but in human nature itself’.Footnote 96
The Abu Dhabi Declaration states that ‘Through faith in God … believers are called to express this human fraternity by safeguarding creation and the entire universe and supporting all persons, especially the poorest and those most in need.’ This means starting from listening to humanity, starting from people, from concrete stories – in particular, pain, injustice and death.Footnote 97 And it means trying to give an answer to the question of meaning that constantly arises from the heart of humanity.
The proposal starts from a basic recognition: to acknowledge the worth of every person, always and in all circumstances.Footnote 98 Consequently, every human being has the right to live with dignity and to develop integrally, and this basic right cannot be denied by any country. ‘Unless this basic principle is upheld, there will be no future either for fraternity or for the survival of humanity.’Footnote 99 A second basic principle of social life is that the human person, with their inalienable rights, is naturally open to bonds. At its root lies the call to transcend oneself in the encounter with others.Footnote 100 Individualistic interpretations of human rights conceal a conception of the human person detached from any social and anthropological context, which results in an impoverishing selfishness that is a source of conflict and violence.Footnote 101 Consequently, we must all know that we are responsible for the fragility of others in the search for a common destiny; care should therefore become a public value. Solidarity is expressed concretely in service, which can take on many different forms of caring for others.Footnote 102 We make ourselves present to those in need of help, regardless of whether they are part of our own circle. It is a matter of giving our capacity to love a universal dimension, capable of transcending all prejudices, all historical or cultural barriers and all petty interests.
From this humanist perspective, a true societas is a real entity (not a fiction or a mental construct), whose ontological identity lies in its particular relationality.Footnote 103 The common good of authentic society consists essentially in the relational network on which that particular kind of society is based;Footnote 104 it is a good that belongs to all members of a society because it is indivisible and because only together can they achieve it.Footnote 105 This common good is conceived as a form of love bounded to that qualified form of people's social life. This is a love of benevolentia: ‘This is an attitude that “wills the good” of others; it bespeaks a yearning for goodness, an inclination towards all that is fine and excellent, a desire to fill the lives of others with what is beautiful, sublime and edifying.’Footnote 106 Therefore, living in an authentic society represents a fundamental human good; it is ‘a place where we learn the experience of the common good’.Footnote 107 Healing our countless personal and communal wounds and fractures requires us to be builders of a new social bond, to revive our vocation as citizens capable of initiating and generating new processes and transformations.Footnote 108
The foundation of this social bond lies in the affirmation of ‘the inalienable dignity of each human person regardless of origin, race or religion, and the supreme law of fraternal love’.Footnote 109 The spiritual height of a human life is marked by love.Footnote 110 This love ‘impels us towards universal communion’ and opens us up to ‘others who expand and enrich us’. It encourages us to look at others, ‘considering them of value, worthy, pleasing and beautiful apart from their physical or moral appearances. Our love for others, for who they are, moves us to seek the best for their lives. Only by cultivating this way of relating to one another will we make possible a social friendship that excludes no one and a fraternity that is open to all.’ Such an outlook creates relationships that are evident in the cultivation of solidarity, defined as ‘thinking and acting in terms of community’, and aspires to the establishment of a universal human family. When individuals, ‘join together in initiating social processes of fraternity and justice for all, they enter the “field of charity at its most vast, namely political charity”’.Footnote 111
This political charity supposes having developed a social sense that overcomes any individualistic mentality: it makes us love the common good and leads us to effectively seek the good of all people, considered not only individually, but also in the social dimension that unites them: that is, from their belonging to a specific people, which is also a holder of rights.Footnote 112 Pope Francis often emphasises this communitarian dimension as a human richness which, besides rooting and completing personal identity, preserves it more easily from all kinds of manipulations of power, both those masked under a supposed defence of national interests, which sow fear and rejection of migrants, and the new forms of cultural colonisation driven by an ‘authoritarian and abstract universalism, devised or planned by a small group and presented as an ideal for the sake of levelling, dominating and plundering’, which steal the souls of the people and lead them to imitate political and economic models alien to their idiosyncrasies, plunging them into despondency.Footnote 113 The Pope also reproaches populist groups, the cause and effect of social fracture, who disfigure the word ‘people’ and politically instrumentalise their culture with any ideological sign, in the service of their personal project and their perpetuation in power, or seek to gain popularity by exacerbating the lowest and most selfish inclinations of some sectors of the population.Footnote 114
The Pope is aware that the category of ‘people’ is often rejected by individualistic liberal visions, where society is seen as a mere sum of co-existing interests.Footnote 115 However
The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom. It has also shown that, in addition to recovering a sound political life that is not subject to the dictates of finance, ‘we must put human dignity back at the centre and on that pillar build the alternative social structures we need’.Footnote 116
In this sense, he advocates rethinking social, political and economic participation in such a way ‘that can include popular movements and invigorate local, national and international governing structures with that torrent of moral energy that springs from including the excluded in the building of a common destiny’. At the same time it is good to promote a means by which
these experiences of solidarity which grow up from below, from the subsoil of the planet – can come together, be more coordinated, keep on meeting one another … They help make possible an integral human development that goes beyond the idea of social policies being a policy for the poor, but never with the poor and never of the poor, much less part of a project that reunites peoples.Footnote 117
Without them, concludes the Pope, ‘democracy atrophies, turns into a mere word, a formality; it loses its representative character and becomes disembodied, since it leaves out the people in their daily struggle for dignity, in the building of their future’.Footnote 118
Therefore, the political charity of which Pope Francis speaks in the encyclical is also expressed in openness to all, allowing different voices to resound, without resigning oneself to living enclosed in a fragment of reality.Footnote 119 In this context, the Pope, together with the Grand Imam, asked ‘the architects of international policy and world economy to work strenuously to spread the culture of tolerance and of living together in peace; to intervene at the earliest opportunity to stop the shedding of innocent blood’.Footnote 120
Interreligious and intercultural dialogue as a tool for enhancing peace and social cohesion
In this dream of building justice and peace together and strengthening feelings of belonging to the same humanity, religions can play an irreplaceable role. Religious teachings invite us to serve the common good and are imbued with values that allow a more humane co-existence (peace, justice, goodness, freedom, equality, fraternity, co-existence, forgiveness, tolerance, respect and the like).Footnote 121 As Benedict XVI underlined, ‘Reason, by itself, is capable of grasping the equality between men and of giving stability to their civic coexistence, but it cannot establish fraternity.’Footnote 122 On the contrary, when in each person there is an openness to the ‘Father of all’, there is also a solid foundation for fellowship.Footnote 123
The express pronouncement in favour of these values by religious authorities confirms that civic values are not alien to religion; on the contrary, they are present in the DNA of all religions. Religions can therefore contribute effectively to their cultural and civic appropriation by believing citizens, as well as to enriching democratic deliberation, preventing political or economic powers from appropriating the meaning of certain expressions such as democracy, freedom, justice or unity, ‘to serve as tools for domination, as meaningless tags that can be used to justify any action’.Footnote 124 Moreover, these pronouncements render a commendable service to the world in that they disavow those who, claiming to be legitimate spokespersons of religions, interpret them in a false way, restricting human rights, justifying discrimination or violence against women, inciting hatred or legitimising violence in the name of God.
In this regard, the express plea in the Abu Dhabi Declaration and in Fratelli Tutti against those who, under the cover of violent radicalism, invoke the name of and sow terror, is of particular interest:
we resolutely declare that religions must never incite war, hateful attitudes, 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 interpretations 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 fight 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.Footnote 125
Similarly, the defence of religious freedom for believers of all religions, with reciprocity, is claimed. This freedom proclaims that we can ‘build harmony and understanding between different cultures and religions. It also testifies to the fact that, since the important things we share are so many, it is possible to find a means of serene, ordered and peaceful coexistence, accepting our differences and rejoicing that, as children of the one God, we are all brothers and sisters.’Footnote 126 It is assumed that pluralism and diversity are the expression of a wise divine will, so that it is not possible to impose a religion or a style of civilisation on those who do not accept it.
It would not be possible to have arrived at these shared convictions without a hard-working and generous inter-religious dialogue aimed at sharing common spiritual, human and social values and moral experiences on the path to truth and love, and investing it in the spread of the virtues called for by the religions. This dialogue also means avoiding useless discussions, for it is not a dialogue for diplomacy or tolerance, but for fellowship.Footnote 127 It does not aim at uniformity, but at interaction between different singularities that recognise and value each other and are capable of intuiting what is essential, what unites beyond their legitimate differences. As the Pope affirms, ‘It is not just about being better informed about others, but rather about reaping what the Spirit has sown in them, which is also meant to be a gift for us.’Footnote 128 Finally, dialogue entails committing oneself and defending what has been agreed upon.
UNESCO therefore pursues a more visible paradigm of interreligious and intercultural dialogue in order to best apply it to prevent conflicts and promote peace and social cohesion.Footnote 129 And, in order to set a solid basis for an effective dialogue, it is essential to have well-developed knowledge of the cultural values, differences and norms.Footnote 130 Indeed, the form of dialogue ought not to invalidate the content of a faith and its corresponding ethics. Pope Francis maintains that ‘A facile syncretism would ultimately be a totalitarian gesture on the part of those who would ignore greater values of which they are not the masters.’Footnote 131 As stated from a confessional perspective,
this dialogue is not a compromise, but rather a framework for reciprocal witnessing among believers who belong to different religions. In this way, one gets to know the other's religion more deeply and better, as well as the ethical behaviours that derive from it. From direct and objective knowledge of the other person, and of the religious and ethical expectations that derive from his or her religious beliefs and practice, grow respect and reciprocal esteem, mutual understanding, trust and friendship. ‘In order to be true, this dialogue must be clear, avoiding relativism and syncretism, while at the same time it must be marked by sincere respect for others and by a spirit of reconciliation and fraternity.’Footnote 132
There are, therefore, ‘red lines’ that must be respected in how religious diversity is to be managed and in preventing the mistaking of dialogue and mutual respect for religious syncretism, relativism and the renunciation of one's own religious identity.Footnote 133 The form of dialogue cannot invalidate the content of one's own faith and its corresponding ethics, as we shall see below.
Interreligious dialogue is also part of intercultural dialogue, which is the first step towards using different traditions and cultural histories to devise new solutions to common problems. Intercultural dialogue is therefore an essential tool for settling conflicts peacefully and a prerequisite for developing a culture of peace. If we are to learn to live together, we need to understand these religious factors well. For this reason, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe and UNESCO are especially interested in promoting the religious dimension of intercultural dialogue and intercultural education – in particular, knowledge of religions – as a means of fostering democratic citizenship, mutual respect and recognition of religious freedom, and promoting understanding of social diversity.Footnote 134
It can also be argued that knowledge of one's own religion or ethical principles is a prerequisite for any genuine tolerance and can act as a defence against indifference or prejudice.Footnote 135 Without knowing and accepting one's own identity, marked – among other traits – by sex, language, race and religion, it is not possible to enrich each other or even help others to discover who they are.Footnote 136 At the same time, this intercultural perspective requires a solid understanding of other religions to eliminate prejudices and stereotypes, to overcome religious relativism and to avoid unjustified fears that hinder dialogue and raise barriers to the point of provoking violence and misunderstandings.Footnote 137
Peaceful co-existence demands knowledge and recognition of what is alien, but understanding something that is alien is only possible when we understand its symbolic background. Within this framework, interreligious dialogue is the key to intercultural dialogue, since it is not forged in folkloric elements but in the space of mentalities and values. In fact, habits, rites and collective forms of life can only be truly understood from explicit or implicit reference to a universe of values and referents that have much to do with religion and the spiritual facet of the human being.
UNESCO recognises that ‘religious issues accordingly come into play in an intercultural approach to education but remain specific as they touch upon what is perceived to be the sacred’.Footnote 138 Recognising the specificity of religion does not necessarily imply being a believer, but it does involve at the very least a great deal of intellectual integrity.Footnote 139 Religiousness entails a relationship with transcendence, a search for meaning and, therefore, a real problem with variants that must be understood in a different way from that of any other natural or bio-psychological fact. This transcendental dimension ought not be neglected when explaining religion, or making other religions – and the religion of the other – understandable. An exclusively cognitive perspective is not enough to explain or know religions; therefore, it is not enough to authentically explain the various religions to correct the stereotyped and altered images. This dogmatic and ritual dimension of religion would be incomplete if it were not accompanied by the spirituality that defines each religion, and in it can be found very useful elements for managing diversity insofar as it incorporates values and attitudes that unite in a wider and universal fraternity.Footnote 140
Religious leaders can therefore make excellent allies for UNESCO in furthering the research into intercultural skills and cultural literacy required by the culture of peace in today's era of globalisation. Not in vain are ‘learning to be and ‘learning to live together’ the two pillars that best reflect not only the socialising function of education but also, and above all, the humanist vision of education as an essential common good.Footnote 141 With this encouraging prospect, there is hope of bringing about UNESCO's aspirations published in 1953 of attaining ‘a new humanism in which universality is achieved by the recognition of common values in the diversity of cultures’.Footnote 142
