Common Pathways for Christian and Muslim Families

On November 25, 2012 in Brescia, Italy, two thousand Muslims and Christians will join together for a day-long workshop entitled: “Common Pathways for the Family.”

It will be a moment of gathering the fruits from a network of relationships and common experiences that have matured over the years in many Italian cities. New possibilities have been opened amid the diversity of religious and cultural perspectives. The family will be presented as the common setting for an exchange of testimonies and reflections on dialogue and in listening to one another.

The administrative capital of the Province of Brescia will host this unique workshop on Sunday, November 25, 2012 at Pala Brescia Theatre. The workshop will be attended by 2000 people of Christian and Muslim families from more than 50 cities of North Italy. This is the region that has seen the highest presence of new citizens who have emigrated to Italy and made it their home.

The workshop is the result of a process of welcoming and friendship that has been going on for years between Christians and Muslims, and is rooted in their common faith in God. It is a dialogue that is lived out in daily life and draws on the ideal of universal brotherhood that inspires both the Focolare Movement and some members of the Islamic faith who belong to several Muslim communities in Italy. The process has been one of mutual recognition which has woven a fabric of wholesome friendship that now spreads from the North to the South of the Italian peninsula as it also does in many other countries of the world. Back in 2010 a national meeting was held in the Focolare town of Loppiano with 600 Muslim and Christian participants. It included several religious and civil authorities and was entitled “Common Pathways for Brotherhood.”

Brescia 2012 is one step forward in the project that will merge into a national event in Rome, Italy in May 2013 that hopes to further the construction of this common pathway. The November 25th event will be attended by religious and civil authorities, including the Bishop of Brescia, Luciano Monari, the Imam of the Islamic Community of Brescia, Dr. Amyn Hasmy and many other Imams and leaders of the Muslim community in North Italy.  

The panel discussion that will be the centrepiece of the event will focus on the family as a promoter of the common good in the city. Therefore the family be presented as a resource and not as a problem, and the relationship between families will be highlighted as a space in which to influence the surrounding society with its virtues through the construction of a network of solidarity and shared projects.

The year 2013 is the European Year of Citizenship. In this sense the promotors are convinced that families will also be able to bring their own important contribution to the formation and training of responsible citizens who are actively involved in pursuing the common good.

Promotors:

• Focolare Movement

• Ucoii (Union of Islamic Communities in Italy)

• Crii (Council of Islamic Italian Relations)

• Gmi  (Muslim Youths of Italy)

• Admi (Muslim Womens Association of Italy)

• Islamic Community of Triveneto

• Islamic Cultural Centre of Brescia

 

 

Source: www.focolare.org