Tony Blair Faith Foundation

Today, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in collaboration with Fondazione per la Sussidiarietá and University of Ca’ Foscari of Venice , is hosting the final seminar in a series of high-level seminars throughout Italy to explore the importance of religion in the modern, globalised world. The closing seminar will explore issues and tensions surrounding human rights and religious freedoms. 

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.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.”

Speakers and contributors include respected scholars from the University of Ca’ Foscari and Sophia University Institute. Representatives from the Italian Islamic Religious Community, Jewish Schools of Rome, the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratization and the International Centre of Communion and Liberation will also be participating in the seminar.

Shaykh Abd-al-Wahid Pallavicini, President of the Italian Islamic Religious Community (CO.RE.IS) said, “the Muslim world does not have a totalitarian concept of existence but it believes in adapting Islam to modernity and peaceful cohabitation of different religious cultures- indeed Former Italian Ambassador in Moscow, Sergio Roman has recently confirmed this.”

Previous seminars in the series were held in association with the Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, University of Bologna, and the Universitá Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. 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 importance of understanding religion in a globalised world.

Find out more about the seminar series on our website or by following us on Twitter @FGI_TBFF