Tony Blair Faith Foundation

Today, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in collaboration with Fondazione per la Sussidiarietá and Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, is hosting the first in a series of high-level seminars throughout Italy to explore the importance of religion in the modern, globalised world.

In Rome, the opening seminar will ask, what virtues are required to deal with globalisation and the political and religious pluralism of the 21st century? What education do young people need to adequately prepare them for the modern world where people of different religions and cultures are brought together through the speed of globalisation, modern communications and travel on a daily basis?

Tony Blair, Founder and Patron of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation said, “trade, travel and migration are bringing different people, cultures and religions together at an astonishing rate. Catholic Italy is increasingly aware of being the northern shore neighbour of south shore Muslim North Africa. There is an urgent need to build understanding between these different religions so as to avoid conflict and maintain social harmony. The Catholic Church has a leading role to play in pursuing justice and reconciliation in Italy by promoting interfaith and the faith treatment of religious minorities.”

These seminars analyse how complex challenges - such as the significance of faith, trends in migration, and economic downturns - affect Italian society. They also look at a perceived growth of tension between religious and secular thinking on how society and its values are ordered and prioritised.

Speakers and contributors include: Onorato Grassi, Professor of History of Medieval Philosophy, LUMSA, Sebastiano Maffettone, Dean Faculty of Political Science, LUISS Guido Carli, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, President of the Institute forWorks of Religion, H.E. Cardinal Jean-Louis Pierre Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Ruth Turner, Chief Executive of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Monsig-nor Khaled Akasheh, Head of the Office for Relations with Islam at the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, will deliver a speech on behalf of H.E. Cardinal Jean-Louis Pierre Tauran.

The subsequent seminars in the series will be held in association with the University of Bologna, Universitá Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, University of Ca’Foscari in Venice over coming weeks. The series is part of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s Faith and Globalisation Initiative, which is a global network of universities working together to educate the next generation of leaders about the

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