Says Pope a Key Player in Both Kinds of Dialogue
ARANJUEZ, Spain, JULY 26, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Interreligious and intercultural dialogue are linked, and Benedict XVI has been a key figure in both, says Cardinal Paul Poupard.
The president of the Pontifical Council of Culture said this on Tuesday when speaking on "Benedict XVI and Dialogue Between Cultures and Religions" at a summer course on the thought of the Pope organized by the King Juan Carlos University Foundation.
Cardinal Poupard, formerly the president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue as well, reflected on the importance of culture as a crossroads between religions.
He then detailed the way in which the Pope, both now and as a cardinal, showed the essential continuity between interreligious dialogue and intercultural dialogue.
Cardinal Poupard showed the original input of the Holy Father in bringing about a more intense encounter and dialogue between people of culture and representatives of various religions.
He contended that it is possible -- despite apparent antagonism and the challenge of religious pluralism -- to arrive to common ground on questions like "the global sense of one's existence" and the "dynamics of moving past the material to the beyond."
The relation with the transcendent is a common patrimony for all cultures and religions, the 76-year-old cardinal affirmed.
"There cannot be authentic interreligious dialogue if it is not founded on culture, and vice versa, every instance of intercultural dialogue is, in the end, dialogue about the great religious questions," the cardinal said.
He emphasized that the Holy Father has been key in leading to a focus on what is universal to all religions, for example, "human rights, and especially, the freedom of faith and being able to profess it."
ZE07072605 - 2007-07-26