Parliament of Worlds Religion 2004 Barcelona

Author(s): Parliament of the World’s Religions
Publisher: USA Parliament of the Worlds Religions

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Welcome from the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions
Religion can be a realm of extraordinary power. It can offer solace in troubled times. It can make sense of the seemingly senseless because of the world we live in. It can give us strength to meet the physical and spiritual challenges of life. Religion helps us find our place in the cosmos; it knits families and communities together; it endows individuals with compassion and morality. Whether one believes without question or wrestles with doubt, whether one is part of a religious community or worships in the privacy of the soul, religious practices and beliefs are among the phenomena that define us as human.
Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders August 2000
There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. Hans Küng The Parliament of the World's Religions - Chicago August 1993
There is a difference between optimism and hope. Optimism is like fortune telling. It has to do with assessing the prospects for something good happening. It is a deep-seated feeling that the odds are tipped in our favor. Are there good reasons today to be more or less optimistic about the prospects for peace around the world? Each of us could make a case one way or another.
Hope is something different. It has to do with how you live, regardless of the situation, often in spite the current circumstances. To live by hope has to do with where you put your time, energy, commitment, and life. It has to do with pursuing what will bring about peace, whether or not you should be optimistic about ever attaining it. Hope has to do with what you will work for, and how you will work for it, no matter how long it might take, or whether or not it will ever happen.
Hope is founded not on wishful thinking, but on the conviction that pathways to peace exist, and that peace will ultimately only happen if we follow these pathways into the future.
Finding such "pathways to peace" is the aim and theme for the 2004 Parliament of the World's Religions. Thousands of people from around the world, from dozens of communities, traditions and perspectives, are gathering in Barcelona to foster the kind of understanding, mutual respect and goodwill that can be the basis for the shared work of seeking peace, justice and sustainability in a world where, at the moment, there is much
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