World's Largest Inter-Religious Gathering to Convene In Spain

The World’s largest international, inter-religious gathering will assemble in Spain for the 2004 “Council for a Parliament of the World’s religions” (CPWR). The event will be held in Barcelona from July 7th til 13th, nearly five months after the March 11th terrorist attacks in Madrid.

The organisers are hoping that the gathering will draw together thousands of people from all around the globe. All people of faith, spirit and goodwill are invited to the event to encounter the vast diversity of the world's religious, spiritual and cultural traditions. The event is advertised as an opportunity “to listen to each other with open hearts and minds, to dialogue for mutual understanding, to reflect on critical issues facing the world, to celebrate the richness of our spiritualities, and to commit to discovering and creating new pathways to peace.”

This will be the fourth time that the CPWR has been called together and the first since the tragic September 11th attacks in America. The event was last held in Cape Town, South Africa in 1999, where Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama were I attendance to give their full support to the occasion.

“The first Parliament was held on September 11, 1893, a date that now, along with March 11, is inexorably linked to the tragic terrorist attacks that have shown the world the global danger of religious extremists,” said Rev. Dr. William E. Lesher, Chair of the Council’s Board of Trustees. “Such tragedy and misunderstanding requires both a local and global response that is hopeful and cooperative in nature.”

The CPWR promote their aim as being “to cultivate harmony among the world's religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its other guiding institutions in order to achieve a peaceful, just, and sustainable world.”

The Parliament will examine how to overcome religiously motivated violence and to forge new pathways to peace in the new age of international terrorism. It will ask it’s 7,000 to 12,000 international attendees to positively commit to taking home "simple and profound" acts that benefit their local communities in four areas:
(i) Overcoming religiously motivated violence,
(ii) Supporting refugees worldwide,
(iii) Increasing access to clean water
(iv) Eliminating international debt for developing countries.

"The Barcelona Parliament is not about the unity of world religions but about a search for harmony among them," said Lesher. "Instead of seeking consensus, we ask attendees to find points of convergence in their beliefs and values and to turn those commonalities into real actions within their communities."

As part of its theme, "Pathways to Peace: The Wisdom of Listening, the Power of Commitment," experts will directly train 2,000 attendees to perform these harmonious actions in their own diverse communities. Additionally, the Parliament will offer more than 400 programs, performances and lectures over the course of the gathering.

The first-ever Paul Carus Award for ‘Outstanding Contributions to the Inter-religious Movement’, which carries with it a $50,000 prize will be awarded to an individual, community or organisation that has demonstrated exemplary and visionary efforts in promoting inter-religious harmony and cooperation. The award is in memory of Dr. Paul Carus, a pioneer in the inter-religious movement and a world-renowned scholar, writer and publisher in the fields of religion, philosophy and science.

The CPWR is working in partnership with 2 other organisations: the “Universal Forum of Cultures - Barcelona 2004”, a 141-day event that includes 40 congresses and "dialogues" on conditions of peace, cultural diversity and sustainable development, and also “The UNESCO Centre of Catalonia”, a non-governmental organization dedicated to international peace and cooperation through the promotion of dialogue and collaboration, and which has promoted a number of initiatives in the field of inter-religious dialogue.

There are many distinguished key speakers at the event including:
- Shirin Ebadi - won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her work fighting for democracy and the rights of women and children.

- H.H. the Dalai Lama - His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people.

- Dr. Hans Küng - as Professor of Ecumenical Theology and Director of the Institute for Ecumenical Research at the University of Tübingen who has written many Christian books that have been translated into many languages worldwide.

- Rosemary Radford Ruether - a pioneer Christian feminist theologian for over three decades and is among the most widely read theologians in the world.