For almost three years now the Barcelona City Council and the UNESCO Association for Interreligious Dialogue (AUDIR) are carrying out a programme to promote interreligious dialogue groups in various neighborhoods of the city . Within the framework of this programme, interreligious groups currently work in Torre Baró - Ciutat Meridiana, La Marina, Gràcia, Nou Barris and Sants-Hostafrancs .
The basic objectives of a group of interreligious dialogue in a neighborhood are the following:
- Promoting the relationship between religious communities and convicts of proximity.
- Understanding religious beliefs and practices.
- Knowing more the meaning that each religion and spirituality gives to life.
- Discovering the common points, especially in the ethical field, and the differences between different religious and spiritual traditions.
- Making visible and normalise, in the neighborhood, the town or the city, the religious fact and the religious diversity.
- Organizing joint acts, exhibitions, round tables, talks or celebrations open to everyone to help raise awareness among the citizenry.
- Participating in neighborhood activities and interacting with their social entities from a standpoint of mutual respect and interest.
- Developing tools for communicating the values of the dialogue through the local press and to ensure that the local media echoes the initiative.
Interreligious dialogue groups start their journey by exposing who they are and what each community does in the neighborhood, and their members mutually invite themselves to the various places or centres of worship. Visits are commented, in detail, on the local-temple and on the essence of the religious or spiritual tradition visited, with questions to grasp and better understand the different beliefs. This has been done in various dialogue groups: a synagogue, a local Buddhist community and also Catholic parishes, Muslim oratories and evangelical temples have been open to visits.
At each Group meeting, a generic spiritual text or some traditional features are presented and discussed among all. The text leads the participants to talk about how each person and every tradition perceives and lives a specific matter, and often this dialogue has the consequence of agreeing to deal with subjects that allow understanding of the spiritual experience of others. During the past three years, the various groups have talked about the celebrations of each other ‘s traditions, fasting, spirituality, forms of prayer, organizational style, social actions, the relationship with the neighborhood and its entities , etc. In fact, all participants have been able to discover a different way of looking at life, the world and people, with some common points
The Groups also decide on joint actions to be carried out in schools or social entities around the immediate environment. It is understood that the dialogue lives and builds on the environment, the environment and the environment. It is a way to make the idea that religious traditions are a cultural, ethical and spiritual heritage of all humanity, as UNESCO often recalls.
More information and supporting documents:
