The globally trendy TED conferences came to the Vatican on April 19, with contributions from a Serbian basketball star, a Muslim graffiti artist from Birmingham, scientists, a rabbi and Cuban-born American singer Gloria Estefan.
TED — short for Technology, Entertainment and Design — offers a worldwide platform for what it calls “ideas worth spreading”.
Its conferences feature imaginative and entertaining speeches lasting precisely 18 minutes on developments in the sciences, computing, media and the arts.
The Vatican conference, with a theme of religious freedom, was held under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Courtyard of the Gentiles project.
“We wanted to listen to stories from every walk of life,” said curator Giovanna Abbiati, who, along with a group of lay academics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, came up with the idea of holding the event.
“We want to reaffirm that religious freedom is a fundamental human right,” she said.
“First of all, it is an aspiration of the soul. Religious freedom consists in the protection of all men and women from coercion of conscience.
“Second, through religion we discover who we are. We discover values and the respect of these values. Genuine religion has a full role to play in society to make our world one of justice and peace.”
The event was hosted by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.
He said there is a “tragic and painful lack of religious liberty in different parts of the world today. There are many areas in the world where religious liberty is suppressed, impeded or restricted in different ways and for various reasons.”
Cardinal Ravasi said restrictions on religion have increased not only in countries known for their lack of religious freedom, but also in many countries with a good record.
According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, he said, no less than 75 per cent of the world’s population “lives in countries where governments, social groups or individuals restrict people’s ability to freely practise their faith”.
Sources:
Image: Gloria Estefan (Facebook)
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