World Day of Cultural Diversity
Cultural diversity is the common heritage of humanity and is ‘produced’ together
The World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development – officially established by the United Nations in 2002 soon after UNESCO’s adoption of the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity – aims to raise global awareness of the importance of dialogue between different cultures for the achievement of peace and sustainable development and closely links interculturality, justice and peace.
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The recognition of cultural diversity as the ‘common heritage of mankind‘ as a driver of development, both economic and of intellectual, affective, moral and spiritual life, underpins all the research and work of the Culture Sector of UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) founded in 1945. The concept, already expressed in 2001 in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, in which reference definitions can also be found, is then more strongly taken up and reaffirmed in the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
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This intellectual and moral stance has evolved further over the past two decades in view of the fact that globalisation has made our existence more complex on a personal and social level and has caused and continues to cause an unstoppable mixing and mobility of people and cultures. Today we are increasingly aware that diversity is a complex heritage that requires the ability to distinguish the interweaving of similarities and differences: similarities tend to merge automatically, differences, on the other hand, risk degenerating into clashes that – if recognised and respected – transform us and make us capable of generative solidarity.
The intercultural challenge places us at the centre of a complexity that requires intergenerational co-responsibility: the message of the World Day of Cultural Diversity concerns us all, not just the young, as was in the spirit of the United Nations. Empathy, encounter, respect and inclusion must be witnessed, before being proclaimed.
"As for me, I don't want to hear anymore that I am French. I am Italian, English, German... I am from all countries wherever there are souls to be saved."
Saint Mary Euphrasia
WE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD WALK IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF OUR FOUNDRESS AND HER PROPHETIC INTERCULTURAL SENSITIVITY RE-ENACTED IN THE CONGREGATION'S POSITIONS AND VALUES OF
RECONCILIATION JUSTICE AND PEACE.
IN COMMUNITY AND APOSTOLIC SERVICES WE FEEL THE URGENCY TO
BUILD BRIDGES BETWEEN PEOPLE AND CULTURES
THROUGH FRATERNITIES AND PROJECTS THAT INCREASINGLY PROMOTE
COMMUNION, BONDS OF SOLIDARITY AND RECIPROCITY.
