2015 (EN)

Baku, Azerbaijan, hosted the third world Forum about intercultural dialogue, sponsored by ONU and European Council, under patronage of Azeri president Aliyev. The forum is an occasion to discuss about the goals reached until today for what concerns the intercultural dialogue and to promote the mutual comprehension between civilisations and nations. The topic of this year Forum is “Culture and sustainable development in the agenda for the period after 2015. Also Monsignor mons. Melchor Sanchez de Toca y Alameda, undersecretary for the Vatican Conseil of Culture. As follows this is what the monsignor declared to Patricia Ynestroza:

R. – This is the third of a series of meeting which gave birth to the so called “Baku spirit” in order to foster the dialogue in an area which is particularly sensitive. Obviously this should be done in cooperation with United Nations and several initiatives for intercultural dialogue. The object of this international forums is close to the spirit of Pontifical Council for Culture: the idea of culture as meeting point, in which is possible to meet. If sometimes, about dogmatic question, is difficult to find an agreement, at least it is possible to do so in the field of culture. Let’s think about the great universal languages: which are cultural phenomenons and thanks to them the populations can understand each other: the music, the sport, the science and the beauty which are universal languages able to link the populations one to another. At the same time can also be reason of struggle: and we are aware of this...

D. – What is the position of the Holy See in the Forum?

R. –The delegation of Holy See is strong about some questions: in primis cultures should not be isolated, because even though the safeguard of national identity should be protected we should not forget to isolate the culture and avoid any contact. As a second step we should remember that in the core of every culture and intercultural dialogue there are some questions which dunk their roots in the religion, because they concern the sense of existence, of the world, the origin and the destiny of the universe and the problems of sufference and evil. So it is not possible to divide the intercultural dialogue by inter religious dialogue. And we should remember to the governs that the dialogue between religions is important in this times of struggles to religious freedom in several places of the world, should be driven by believers and not by governs which should not replace individual believers. We should remember that Pope Francis said several times that “killing in the name of God is a blasphemy”.And this was also reported that without hypocrisy that freedom of expression has always a limit, as was recognized by all the civil systems: the right to freedom of expression doesn’t allow the right to say every thing of anyone. Also religious beliefs of people should be safeguarded in front of excess and public blasphemy

During a meeting with the delegates from Holy See the president Capasso shared the president Capasso finding them coincident with those of Fondazione Mediterraneo.