RELIGIONS AND VIOLENCE
INTERNATIONAL MEETING
PROMOTED BY THE COMMUNITY OF SANT’EGIDIO

19 February 2014
9.30 - 19.20

Conference hall of the
Community of Sant’Egidio
Via della Paglia, 14/b - Rome

Draft program >

ROMA – Notable people from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths will meet diplomats, scholars and analysts on Wednesday, February 19, to discuss the theme “Religions and Violence” at a conference organised by the Community of Sant’Egidio and “Missio”. Several situations will be addressed by participants: Syria and the Middle East, India and Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, the Africa of ethnic conflict and large-scale migration, the “Arab Spring” countries who are living through a complicated and not always straight-forward transition towards democracy.


Some of those attending already took part in the International Meeting for Peace organised by Sant’Egidio last Autumn around the theme “Courage and Hope”. During that event, Pope Francis reminded them that “there can be no religious justification for violence, in whatever form it manifests itself,” and the founder of Sant’Egidio, Andrea Riccardi, defined religious violence as a “blasphemous use of God’s name”. During the meeting on Wednesday the theme will be tackled in four intense sessions looking at the reasons for peace in the face of violence, the role of religions, testimonies of peace in a violent world and how globalisation can serve to encourage peace as an alternative to violence.


Along with the founder of Sant’Egidio Andrea Riccardi and its president Marco Impagliazzo, participants will include Cardinal Walter Kasper, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Rome’s chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni. Muhammad Khalid Masud, member of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Gholamali Khoshroo, special adviser to Iranian President Khatami, Dionysius Jean Kawak, Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Syria, Benjamin Argak Kwashi, Anglican Archbishop of Jos in Nigeria, Jerry White, diplomat for the U.S. Department of State, Tarek Mitri, head of the United Nations mission in Libya, and Abbas Shuman, vice president of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University.