Christians and Jains Need to Join Hands Together: Cardinal Tauran

Christians and Jains need to join hands together to preserve and promote life with dignity and freedom, said Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of Pontifical Council for inter-religious dialogue.

He was speaking at an inter-religious seminar in New Delhi on November 13 that highlighted the similarities between the two communities.

“Christians and Jains have many things in common. As Christians, we believe that life is very precious and the Jain religion too upholds the sanctity of life and urges its promotion and protection,” said the cardinal.

He said that “our vocation to promote respect for life, non-violence, peace and harmony in today’s world brings us together with the common bond of mutual affection for each other.’

The cardinal called on all the protagonists of politics, economic and social communications to do everything in their power to “promote a culture which respects human life.”

The seminar was part of the cardinal’s 10-day visit to the country during which he held deliberations with leaders of different faiths. He met with the Hindu delegation in Pune and the Sikhs in Amritsar.

Sadhvi Sadhna from the Jain community said that a person has to believe in his/her religious scriptures as no religion teaches hatred or non-violence.

“We have to shun violence, ego, hatred from within ourselves, only then we will be able to bring a change in the world,” she said.

She said that the world will not have to conduct such conferences to promote peace and harmony if “we bring a change in ourselves.’

Fr. Vincent Sekhar, associate professor of Philosophy, marked out areas where the two communities could “seek to do something jointly with their religious and other assets in mind.”

Some of the areas he specified were protection, preservation and promotion of life, work of the betterment of ecology and environment and preparing religious texts on major themes like family, social life, diversity and equality.

The seminar was organized by the pontifical council for inter-religious dialogue, Archdiocese of Delhi, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and world fellowship of religions.

Source: By Ritu Sharma

The 2014 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Brussels ?

BRUSSELS (EJP)---Brussels, the city which headquarters the EU bodies, has presented its bid to host Parliament of the World Religions in 2014, the largest interreligious gathering in the world held once every five years in a different city.

Nearly 8.000 people from around the world are expected to attend the one-week event whose objective is to promote the dialogue between the various religions, faiths and convictions.

The previous gathering in Melbourne, Australia, in 2009, had gathered representatives of the three monotheists religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but also of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Jainism, Animism and Baha’i.
Brussels is competing with Guadalajara, Mexico, and Dallas in the United States.
Members of the management board of the Chicago-based Parliament of the World Religions stayed in Brussels earlier this month to visit the city’s infrastructures and to appreciate their capacities. They also met representatives of religious groups and political authorities.

According to Peter De Wilde, head of Flanders’s tourism bureau, which works together with Brussels International (BITC) in the bidding process, this kind of event is very important for Belgium because of the economic fallouts.

"Brussels has much to bring to the world owing to the fact that it’s a town of junction and consensus", said Miguel Mesquita da Cunha, who chairs the Steering Committee Brussels 2014.

The choice of the next host city should be known in January 2011.