For a culture of encounter and dialogue between different cultural poles in Europe

Guidelines for our dialogue

Diversity as a value. Pope Francis speaks of an authentically multipolar Europe where ethnic, cultural, religious and political diversity is seen as a resource in the perspective of mutual gift and collaboration to promote the common good of all.

Rethinking thinking. This tension toward unity requires, first of all, the revision of our usual self-referential and antagonistic categories in order to discover in everyone that positive on which true collaboration can be built.

A culture of encounter. In our project we focus on the primacy of relationships: getting to know each other, listening to each other, valuing each other’s richness, in the knowledge that we are thus creating the necessary conditions of access to truth in dialogue.

The pact of mutual love. To create an authentic culture of encounter, participants make a solemn covenant of mutual love as the basis of every relationship on the common path. This is an unconditional commitment to be faithful to the covenant even if in others this commitment is broken. This may involve at certain times allowing oneself to be hurt, ready to transform the pain of misunderstandings and resistance into love, understanding and collaboration.

A culture of collaboration. According to a widespread mentality, we can only collaborate if we agree on our core values that distinguish us from others. Healing the deep wounds of the globalized world requires cross-collaboration even with those whose conceptions are partially different from ours. The idea of differentiated consensus promotes a new kind of social relationship: we collaborate for the realization of some values while remaining on different platforms for others.

Growing together. Multipolar dialogue promotes a process of growing together. There is a preference for “slow thinking” to bring out the truth among dialogists gradually and does not want in “fast thinking” to arrive at full consensus right away.

Generative dialogue. In this perspective, a space of trust is created where everyone can express his or her thoughts according to his or her own conscience. The partners offer mutual assistance to each other’s thought birth in dialogue. It is the attitude of care and support applied to each other’s thinking.