Presence of PISAI at the G20 Interfaith Forum 2021

The PISAI was represented by its President, Prof. Diego Sarrió Cucarella, M.Afr., at the G20 Interfaith Forum 2021, held in Bologna on 11-14 September 2021. Since 2014, the G20 Interfaith Forum offers an annual platform where scholars, religious leaders and political representatives engage on global agendas. The agenda for each Forum is framed taking into account the annual G20 priorities (outlined each year by the host government). This year’s event was hosted by the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII (FSCIRE) under the theme: “Time to Heal: Peace among Cultures, Understanding between Religions.”

Among the speakers and participants there was a notable presence of persons connected to PISAI in different ways: Gianluca Parolin (The Aga Khan University, London), Ambrogio Bongiovanni (Gregorian Centre for Interreligious Studies, Rome), Martino Diez (Oasis International Foundation, Venice), Elena Dini (John Paul II Center for Interreligious Dialogue, Roma), Fr. Innocent Maganya, M.Afr. (Institute for Interreligious Dialogue and Islamic Studies, Nairobi), Adnane Mokrani (FSCIRE, Palermo), Fr. Friedrich Bechina, F.S.O. (Congregation for Catholic Education), and Mgr. Khaled Akasheh (Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue).

In a message to the participants in the 2021 Forum, after recalling the rise of violence that exploits the sacred, Pope Francis emphasized that the answer cannot be the violence of arms, “which only generates more violence, in an endless spiral of retaliation and revenge” and that “the path to peace is found not in weapons, but in justice”. He further emphasized that religious leaders must be the first to bear witness that “the capacity to fight evil does not lie in proclamations, but in prayer; not in revenge, but in concord; not in shortcuts dictated by the use of force, but in the patient and constructive force of solidarity”.