Andrea Bartoli ACUNS Presentation 160618

A home for the mind, heart and spirit
The Role of Faith in
Meeting the Challenges of
Development and Dignity
ACUNS
Fordham University
June 2016

The role of faith in
meeting the challenges of
development and dignity is:
to motivate, sustain and probe
individuals and communities in
seeking the good of all.

The role of faith is especially
important in inviting, encouraging
and accompanying a future that is
better than the present and
open to the good of all.

The UN system is paying greater
attention -at all levels- to the role of
faith in all aspects of human
endeavors.
This might greatly help all member
states become more attuned to the
contributions of people of faith.

A personalist approach

Dag Hammarskjöld
Ban Ki-moon

The faith of whom?
The role of whom?
The development of whom?
The dignity of whom?

Human rights are personal rights
protecting all
in the intimacy of their beliefs.

Human rights protect all of us from
destructive use of religions,
especially those who venture into
the exploration of differences and
emerging realities.

We co-author each other and can
use words to give or take lives.

Humans -each human- move from
immediacy to a world mediated by
meaning and motivated by value.

Other humans came before us and
taught us to speak and live.

Life spoke to many of them.
They encountered life beyond what
we can see, touch and feel
in our own bodies. They had faith.

Like them, I am a believer asking
questions on the role of faith
in development and dignity.

Yet, I cannot escape my own
subjectivity.

As any other human being, each of
us is at the same time unique and
universal, and can be percived by
others as a gift or a threat.

Emir Abd El Kader

One person at a time.
One word at a time.
One act at a time.

Development as living and creative
response to adversity

Faith, hope and agency
reveal human dignity.

Solidarity v. exclusion

“Seek what unites
not what divides.”
Pope John XXIII

Recognizing
Understanding
Probing
Engaging

"Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes
too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the
face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom
you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you
contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will
he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to
a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other
words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry
and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find
your doubts and your self melt away."
-Mahatma Gandhi 1948

In faith, if you seek development
and recognize dignity,
listen to the poor
and speak to the powerful…

Be prudent and kind with those
who you do not know and those
who you think you know.

Contribute who you are
to a humanity that is
always in the making.

Eskerrik Asko
(Thanks; 謝謝; Cпасибо; ‫;شكر‬
Merci; Gracias)

Andrea Bartoli ACUNS Presentation 160618

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Andrea Bartoli ACUNS Presentation 160618