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Tony Blair announces new Faith & Globalisation Partnership in Italy

The 21st century is unlikely to see a fundamental conflict of political ideology in the way the 20th century was dominated by it. But it might well see a clash of religious or cultural ideology.

The reason the study and understanding of religion matters today more than ever before, is this: the world is undergoing rapid and tumultuous change. Globalisation, accelerated by the communications revolution, is driving much of it, breaking down boundaries, altering the composition of whole communities, even countries. The changing circumstances create new overlapping challenges that can only be met effectively together: terrorism, financial crises, climate change, even how we respond to the Arab Spring.

Interdependence is now the recognised human condition. Interconnectedness is the reality. Trade, migration, travel, bring different people, cultures and religions face to face in our modern cities, sometimes not under conditions of their own choosing.

The internet creates no less important encounters, most of which are positive. But it can also bring division and social hostility, and some of the consequences are placed at the door of religion. Today about a third of the world’s population live in countries where government restrictions on religion, and social hostility based on religious difference, are increasing.

So people often find it harder to practice their faith, and faith itself can become synonymous with hatred and sectarianism, not reconciliation and justice, the core values of the world’s faiths. The right to freedom of religion defined in the UN Universal Declaration is abrogated often in the name of a spurious national security. Restrictions on the legitimate rights of religious minorities do not add to social harmony. The evidence suggests rather that they are correlated with growing religiously linked conflict and other negative outcomes. Nor is it good news for governments which lose legitimacy with their own citizens.

Europe is far from immune to these pressures. In a recent Pew Research Centre report, Italy in 2009 fell into the category of countries with a low level of government restrictions on religion but a moderate level of social hostility towards people of other faiths. As in many countries in southern Europe, Catholic Italy is increasingly aware of being the northern shore neighbour of south shore Muslim North Africa.

This is the background to my Faith Foundation holding, in collaboration with the Fondazione per la Sussidiarieta, Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, University of Bologna, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan and CA’ Foscari University, Venice, a series of four seminars during Autumn 2011. Our Faith and Globalisation initiative is an engagement with universities around the world to analyse the importance of religion in the interconnected world of the 21st.century.

The Italian perspective on this series probes the role of religion in the complex contemporary challenges facing Italian society. Firstly there is the changing significance of faith with the growing - perceived - binary opposition between religious and secular thinking about the ordering of society, and the prioritising of its values. Secondly there is the need to integrate immigrant religious minorities, most notably Muslim migrants in a traditionally Catholic society. This makes new demands in education, pastoral care, interfaith relations and the practical implementation of Catholic social teaching.

Italy is not alone in coming to terms with the demands of religious pluralism. Europe is not of a fixed mind about the role of religion in the public life, nor about the full implications of the universal UN right to freedom of religion. Around the world, there are successful examples of democracy-friendly religion often associated with religion-friendly democracy - but also their absence. Where they are missing, religion is seen as part of the problem with secular democrats reluctant to see religion invade the public square.

How secularism, or laicite, deals with participation by people of faith in public debate and civil society, religion and its relationship to the state, is fast becoming a key political question for Europe today. We have seen legitimate, and illegitimate, ways of religions exerting influence in the public domain, the different forms of the republican tradition, and other secular approaches to religion in the public square. But what should it mean for a democracy to be friendly to religion and how can democratic governments safeguard the rights of religious minorities?

Statesmen and political leaders neglect the importance of religious identity today at their peril. The tension between individual and communal religious rights, the need for an open identity at ease with diversity, (l’identita aperta), for religious freedom put at the heart of human rights, are all common European concerns. Creating a culture of dialogue, respect and understanding for other faiths is not an optional extra. “The human person has a right to religious freedom, and all people, in every part of the world, should be immune from coercion on the part of individuals, social groups and every human power”, John Paul II wrote in Ecclesia in Europa.

But, for an increasingly secularised Europe, even more fundamental questions have to be to be asked, and answered: “Why does faith matter in a globalised world?” Then follows the pressing supplementary question: What virtues and values are required, for this stage of globalisation, to sustain the political and religious pluralism of the 21st. century democratic nation-state? And what education do young people need to prepare themselves for this world where different faiths – inescapably - meet?

From my experience as British Prime Minister, faith was a powerful force for good in the field of international development, in health and in education. We should investigate and build on commonalities in the understanding of justice and charity as core religious themes of the monotheistic faiths.

The study of faith and globalisation is becoming essential for modern academic life. I would like to see it take root in Italian universities. This will help us study the impact of religion, good and bad. I hope to show that ultimately religion can do good. One striking example of a globalised, networked Church is led by the Unione Superiore Maggiore d’Italias, countering sexual trafficking, the dark underside of globalisation, working with Women Religious around the world.

An Italian champion of this pastoral care for trafficked women, Sister Eugenia Bonetti, once boasted “we have a better network than Al-Qu’aeda”. May this remain the dominant reality of faith and globalisation in the second decade after 9/11.

Tony Blair is Founder and Patron of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Mr Blair is pleased to be working in collaboration with Fondazione per la Sussidiarieta on this seminar series.

This article was originally published in Italian in the Corriere Della Sera