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March 14, 2019
Liam McIntyre
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY – In a world of different religions, cultures and languages, art has the capacity to bring people together and inspire them to take action in addressing critical challenges, said a Vatican official.
That is why the official, Father Augusto Zampini, made sure art and culture played a pivotal role in the international conference he helped organize at the Vatican on what religions could do to help the world reach the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
Sponsored by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the conference March 7-9 brought together representatives from the world’s major religions.
They discussed how spirituality, religious values and sacred texts all point the way toward safeguarding creation and addressing the challenges of poverty, hunger, inequality, injustice, environmental degradation and other global problems.
That religion, art and culture can and must play a role in building a sustainable future is an idea that had been missing from most international forums, but their input was needed to inspire people to take action, Father Zampini, director of development and faith at the dicastery, told Catholic News Service.
“How many conferences have you heard (about) that are happening on development? Thousands. What is the effect, the consequences, the change that they have produced?” he asked.
“We don’t want to organize a conference just to talk about development. We want to organize a conference that can make a difference” and one way to make a difference is to utilize art and culture – not as a sideline diversion for entertainment – but as a valuable part of the conversation, he said March 5.
Different cultures and the arts are needed “to talk to our hearts so as to allow us to change,” said Father Zampini.
Guided by the theme of “Listening to the cry of the earth and of the poor,” the conference opened by listening to a group of children from a Rome kindergarten and to young people in foster care.One of the messages of the conference was “Leave no one behind,” and organizers sought to make sure the voice of marginalized future generations was included by inviting the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela to an evening concert of multicultural music and dance March 7. The orchestra members were part of the youth music-education program, El Sistema, that provides free classical music education to impoverished children with the hopes of lifting them out of poverty.
Organizers said they hoped that the mix of artists throughout the conference would remind people the world does not belong to any one religion or culture, but is a symphony of voices and viewpoints and the only way forward is to move together.