World Day of Religion 2023
Proposed by an assembly convened in 1948 in the USA by the Bahá'í religion, the World Day of Religion aims to promote harmonious understanding between religions and combat intolerance. It is celebrated on the third Sunday of the calendar year - that is, this year, on 22 January.
The intention is excellent. But it is worth questioning the assumptions. Indeed:
We can start from the principle that the various religions are only culturally conditioned manifestations of the same religious appetite of all humanity. In other words, we can celebrate the Day in the conviction that, basically, "Religion" is only one, and that the various confessions are distinguished only by the practices and doctrines that history has lent them;
Or we can see, on the contrary, in the specificity of each religion something irreducible to a general religiosity, and contemplate instead the differences, appreciating critically in the multiple religions the spiritual biodiversity of humanity.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity[1] is being held in the northern hemisphere from 19-25 January. 1] This is a very different initiative. As its name indicates, it aims to mobilize the Christian confessions. It was born at the end of the 19th century from some Evangelical communities concerned about the image of Christianity in mission lands; at the beginning of the 20th century it was taken up by the Anglican Communion and, finally, also by the Catholic Church. In the face of the needs and sufferings of the world, the scandal of spending ourselves in division and strife becomes evident. For some years now, Christian communities on the peripheries have therefore been asked to prepare the theme and script of the Week. In 2022, it was communities in Lebanon. This year, it was some Christian communities of indigenous peoples and recent immigrants from Minnesota, USA. And they proposed that we be attentive to social discrimination, listening to the challenge of the prophet Isaiah: "Learn to do good, seek justice" (1:17). "This way of charity," Pope Francis reminded us a few days ago, "will bring us ever closer together, loving and imitating Christ the Good Shepherd."
[1] In the southern hemisphere, the Week takes place in the days before Pentecost Sunday.