Wednesday, September 26, 2018

A Message for the G20 Inter-religious Forum

The Holy Father has sent a Message to the participants taking part in the G20 Inter-religious Forum (G20 Interfaith), which is taking place in Buenos Aires (Argentina) from 26 to 28 September 2018 focused on the theme: Building consensus for a fair and sustainable development: the contribution of religions toward a worthy future.


Message of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
to participants taking part in the
G20 Inter-religious Forum

I affectionately greet the organizers and participants taking part in the G20 Inter-religious Forum, which is taking place this year in Buenos Aires. These inter-religious conferences, within the framework of the G20 Summit meetings, aspire to offer the international community the contribution of their different religious and philosophical traditions and experiences to illuminate those social issues that concern us today in a special way.

During these days of exchange and reflections, they intend to deepen the role of religions and their specific contributions to the construction of a consensus, for a just and sustainable development that ensures a decent future for all. Certainly, the challenges that the world has to face at this time are many and very complex. We are currently facing difficult situations that not only affect so many of our neglected and forgotten brothers, but they also threaten the future of all humanity, and men of faith can not remain indifferent to these threats.

Thinking about religions, I believe that beyond the differences and different points of view, a first fundamental contribution to the world today is to be able to show the fertility of constructive dialogue  in order to find the best solutions to the problems that affect us all: a dialogue that does not mean renouncing one's identity (cf Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 251), but being willing to go out to meet others, to understand their reasons, to be able to weave respectful human relationships with the clear and firm conviction that listening to the one who thinks differently is above all an occasion of mutual enrichment and growth in fraternity. Because it is not possible to build a common home by leaving aside people who think differently, or what they consider important and that belongs to their deepest identity. It is necessary to build a fraternity that is not a laboratory, because the future is in the respectful coexistence of differences, not in the homologation of a single, theoretically neutral thought (Address to the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, 28 November 2013).

Faced with a world in which a technocratic development paradigm is affirmed and consolidated, with its logic of domination and control of reality in favour of economic interests and profits, I think that religions have a great role to play, over all thanks to this new look on human beings, which comes from faith in God, the creator of man and the universe. Any attempt to seek authentic economic, social or technological development must take into account the dignity of the human being; the importance of looking each person in the eyes and not as a mere number or a cold statistic. We are driven by the conviction that man is the author, the centre and the end of all socio-economic life (Constitution, Gaudium et Spes, 63). Let us therefore offer a new way of looking at mankind and at reality, no longer with a manipulative and dominant desire, but with respect for their own nature and their vocation in the whole of creation, because being created by the same Father, all the beings of the universe are united by invisible bonds and we form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion that moves us to a sacred, affectionate and humble respect (Encyclical Letter, Laudato si', 89).

Dear friends, I wish to renew once again, and before this very qualified assembly, my call to protect our common home through concern for the whole human family. An urgent invitation to a new dialogue on how we are building our society, in the search for a sustainable development and convinced that things can change.

Allow me to conclude by recalling once again that we are all necessary in this work, and that we can collaborate together as God's instruments to protect and care for creation, each one contributing their culture and their experience, their talents and their faith.

And please, I ask you to pray for me.

From the Vatican
6 September 2018

Francis
(Original text in Spanish)

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