pathways, June 09
CRA is set to join Australia's interfaith dialogue through its national assembly while two leading Benedictine figures from the world stage will be involved with inter-faith dialogue in Melbourne later this year.
Joan Chittister OSB and Laurence Freeman OSB will be among the speakers at the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions, in Melbourne, in December.
More than 100 congregational leaders from around Australia will gather in Sydney from June 23-26 for this year's national assembly, under the theme
Australian Religious in a multi-faith society: Reality, gift and challenge.
They will be lead in their discussions and reflections by highly respected Christians in the interfaith milieu, Anglican minister and academic Prof Gary Bouma and Catholic priest and academic Patrick McInerney SSC (see
Australian Religious in a multi-faith society)
Fr McInerney will discuss Why dialogue on the opening afternoon of the assembly while Prof Bouma will give the keynote address in two parts on Wednesday, June 24: The Australian Soul - religion in Australian culture 'a shy hope in the heart' and the contribution of religious to a genuine and healthy multi-faith Australia.
Bishop Kevin Manning (Parramatta) will lead a session on Children of Abraham on Wednesday while on Thursday, the assembly will hear about examples of dialogue within the church before a series of workshops. These workshops will range from Jewish and Islamic prayer, the interfaith household and the Women's Interfaith Network to the Parliament of the World's Religions, ecology as a common interest and inter-religious conversation at school.
Tours are also on the agenda: the either the Auburn Gallipoli Mosque at Auburn, or the Jewish Museum at Darlinghurst.
Several business sessions are also included in a tight programme. This assembly is not a voting assembly, so the
current CRA National Council will continue.
Meanwhile, two leading Benedictine figures from the world stage will be in Melbourne later this year for what is being a billed as the largest inter-faith gathering in the world.
The theme, Make a World of Difference: hearing each other, healing the earth is said to reflect the urgent need for religious and spiritual communities and all people of goodwill to act on their concerns for the environment, peace, and overcoming poverty, and to take responsibility for cultivating awareness of global interconnectedness.
This Parliament will focus on the struggles and spiritualities of indigenous peoples around the globe, particularly highlighting Australia's Aboriginal communities.
The two most recent keynote presenters for CRA National Assemblies - Prof Bouma, this year, and Prof Des Cahill, 2008 when the theme focussed on multi-culturalism in Australia - are two key players for the Melbourne parliament.
Prof. Bouma is chair of the Board of Management and Prof Cahill is the Melbourne Program Director.
The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions was created to cultivate harmony among the world's religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions in order to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.
The concept began in 1893 in Chicago, USA, with a meeting of the World's Congress of Religions at the World's Columbian Exposition. The Council for the Parliament of the World's Religion formed at a meeting in Chicago in 1988 and has met since in Chicago (1993), Cape Town, South Africa (1999), Barcelona, Spain (2004) and soon to be Melbourne. A Universal Forum of Cultures met in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2007.
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