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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Assembly
Montserrat Assembly July 5-7, 2004 The Benedictine Monastery at Montserrat
Parliament Assemblies July 9-10 and July 11-12, 2004 Room 112/CCIB
extend projects for the benefit of people and communities throughout the world. While no comprehensive tracking system has followed the progress of these projects, examples of impact from these commitments include the Millionth Circle project with over 200 women's circles devoted to local spiritual development and community service, the Lost Texts project providing copies of sacred texts to communities who thought they were irretrievably lost, and the connection of three programs for educating women and girls in India. Some of the programs at the 2004 Parliament highlight projects resulting from individual commitments made at the Cape Town Assembly.
History of the Assembly The 2004 Assemblies at Montserrat and during the Parliament event in Barcelona represent the next step in the progression of leaders' gatherings that began in 1893, with the first Parliament, and continued in 1993 in Chicago and in 1999 in Cape Town. The first Parliament of the World's Religions was, in effect, a gathering of religious leaders who, through addresses and presentations, made visible to the world the diversity of religious and spiritual traditions from East and West and generated academic interest in the study of comparative religions.
The Assemblies of 2004 The 2004 Montserrat and Parliament Assemblies will engage invited leaders and activists, experts in critical issues, young people, and those impacted by one of four issues, as well as Parliament participants, in developing commitments for their local religious and spiritual communities and institutions.
At the Montserrat and Parliament Assemblies, the Council will:
Introduce a methodology (principles and processes) for creatively engaging religious and spiritual communities, in partnership with other guiding institutions, to address critical issues facing the world.
The second Parliament in 1993, in Chicago, included an Assembly of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, invited to consider the document which came to be known as Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration. At this Assembly, 250 leaders of religious and spiritual traditions and international interreligious organizations met to discuss the document based on the work of Prof. Hans Küng, which presented four ethical principles common across the major eastern and western traditions. Since 1993, the Declaration has been translated into many languages, has provided the focus of many books and engendered much additional study.
· Call for religious and spiritual communities and other
institutions to develop and enact practical and transformative responses to four critical issues: improving the plight of refugees, relieving the crushing burden of international debt on poor countries, creating access to clean water, and overcoming religiously motivated violence.
In 1999, the Council broadened participation in the Assembly of Leaders to include young people as well as leaders from eight guiding institutions: Religion and Spirituality: Government; Agriculture, Labor, Industry and Commerce; Education; the Arts and Communications Media; Science and Medicine; International Intergovernmental Organizations; and Organizations of Civil Society. These leaders considered another document, A Call to Our Guiding Institutions, which presented an invitation to people leading these institutions to consider how they would behave if they took seriously the ethical principles from the Global Ethic.
The Council's methodology for the creative engagement of religious and spiritual communities with critical issues reflects the key organizing principles at the center of the Council's work-enabling religious and spiritual communities worldwide to make a constructive and effective contribution to a more just, peaceful and sustainable world. Through pilot projects and grassroots organizing, partnerships and collaborations, the Council has developed a simple yet sophisticated methodology for religious and spiritual communities to use to make such a contribution
At the end of the Cape Town Assembly participants had made over 200 individual commitments to take up or
The latest developments in this emerging methodology have shaped the design and goals of the Assemblies. The methodology used in the Assembly meetings involves identifying "simple and profound" acts that
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