Mr. President of the Republic,
Distinguished Guests,
Distinguished Representatives of the Christian Churches and of the great world Religions,
Dear friends,

The presence of so many men and women of different religions here in Lisbon, is an important step of a long journey and of a clear willingness. It's the willingness to dialogue, to meet one another at the eve of the new century. It is not a price we pay to a year, 2000, that demands to repeat the summits. Our history of searchers for dialogue among religious and cultural worlds comes from far away. So we present ourselves to the window of the morrow, here in this Portugal that seems a bright terrace on future. It's a terrace for Europe that, as Fernando Pessoa said, "fita, com olhar esfingico e fatal, o Occidente, futuro do passado. O rosto com fita e Portugal".

In 1998, in Bucarest, in the previous stage of this history, an important assembly of religious leaders delivered a significant appeal:

"No hatred, no conflict can resist prayer, forgiveness and love. Therefore, we ask forgiveness and we forgive. Therefore, during these days, we have worked in and learnt dialogue. The medicine of dialogue enables us to heal much misunderstanding and conflict between peoples and between religions. Dialogue reveals that war and incomprehension are not invincible. Nothing is lost by dialogue. Everything is possible with peace".

These words, some months later, opened the way to the first journey of John Paul II to an Orthodox country and to his first visit to a Patriarch and an Orthodox Church. The words of the Bucarest appeal matured in a long and suffered history. At the heart of this history there is the great lesson of the II world War, that we can not forget without losing the thread of our consciousness. It's not by chance that one of the most important stages of our meetings was Warsaw 1989, fifty years after the beginning of the II World War. The meeting ended in Auschwitz with a great inter-religious pilgrimage to the heart of Shoa.

The religious worlds became aware, after the war, of how easy it is to be mocked by evil, by that absolute evil which is represented by the extermination camps. Each religious community faced alone the evil of a global war. It was everybody's defeat, the human kind's defeat. From that war we learnt that Jews and Christians can no longer be prisoners of the teaching of despise. Never again alone facing evil! This is a firmly held belief of St. Egidio community that gives major importance to the celebration in Rome of the memory of October 16th 1943, the day of the nazi raid of the Roman Jews.

The new political season after II World War marked a renewed Arab-Islamic presence on the Mediterranean scene. Here come to my mind two Mediterranean interlocutors of the 50's, the King of Morocco, Muahmmed V, and the major of Florence in Italy, Giorgio La Pira: both dreamed that the Mediterranean Sea of the Cold War could be a space of dialogue. The history of the Islamic- Christian dialogue is a special one. The relationships between Jews and Muslims can not lose the memory of their remote history when the Dar el Islam was a land of multi-religious co-existence. I could continue recalling the tracks of the many bilateral meetings and dialogues. Right after the war began that new ecumenism among Christians that Vatican Council II deemed essential and that John Paul II calls "an irreversible journey". I greet here Card. Cassidy, who has been working at ecumenism with great hope for more than ten years and who will deliver the message of John Paul II. In the last decades, on the Asian front, there have grown forums where also the Eastern religions met the Western religious worlds. The Asia religions, above all those of Japan, have been marked by the war and Hiroshima.

In the second half of the XX century there have been rich bilateral meetings. In this crossing of paths, John Paul II invited to Assisi in 1986 the leaders of the great world religions who answered generously. On the mount of St.Francis, the religious leaders did not negotiated, but they prayed one beside the other, not one against the other. Not a Parliament of religions, but a meeting of prayer, that, in all traditions, is the root of peace. It was not a syncretic experience, but one of closeness that does not cancel the firm identity of each religious community: without separation, without conflict, without confusion.

The Community of St.Egidio felt that Assisi could not be the masterpiece of one single day. It should continue. Therefore we speak of a "spirit of Assisi". The Community of St. Egidio had been working since then for the poor and for peace (this remains its commitment in the 40 countries where it is present). The Community felt that the "spirit of Assisi" was the yearning of many people and of many poor, the dream that matured in times of war and prejudice. The day of Assisi opened a way: the prayer one beside the other, and then the procession to converge together in one single ceremony, in one single appeal, in one single embrace. Each year we repeat that ceremony, that has become an icon of dialogue and peace.

This image speaks mysteriously of the unity of human kind. It has become the point of reference of a dialogue among men of religion, often used to live inside the borders of their own world, at the risk of being seized in nationalistic or conflict identities. So many meetings. Friendship, connections, mutual esteem. I do not remind you of all the 14 stages of our meeting. I remember our meeting in Jerusalem, when we planted three olive-trees at the heart of the old city, while the walls were so high among people. So we have continued the spirit of Assisi till today, here in Lisbon.

We are glad to be here in this country, with its history of democracy that matured in a difficult, courageous, but peaceful transition, which you must be proud of. I take the opportunity to thank all the Portuguese authorities for the help in preparing this meeting. A particular mention deserves the Patriarch of Lisbon, who has welcomed immediately the opportunity of this meeting and inserted it in the Jubilee path of the Church.

In our pilgrimage, year after year, from city to city, a common wisdom has matured: to look for what unites us! It was the method of a great pope, John XXIII, who opened the Vatican Council II. He encouraged to look for what unites us and to set aside what divides us. Starting from these initiatives for dialogue, important peace and reconciliation processes have stemmed, whom the Community of St. Egidio is proud of. First of all the peace in Mozambique, which was signed in St.Egidio on October 4th 1992 and which put the end to a war that had lasted for more than ten years and had caused a million dead. But not only that. I am thinking at the mediation in Guatemala between government and guerrilla or to many other situations. I mention these examples to underline how believers have a great force of peace.

On the other hand the religious communities - it is the history of the 90's - can stay locked up by ethnic borders, can be persuaded to build walls of prejudice or to motivate conflicts. I have in mind the situation in the Balkans. I am thinking at many difficult moments in the ecumenical life or in the meeting of different religious communities. None from outside has the right to judge the coherence of the religious communities to their doctrinal foundations : it is necessary to have great respect. But the experience of the meeting among believers of every faith showed us how often the nationalistic or partisan trap blinds love and suppresses the deep spiritual yearnings that characterize them. Soul is inevitably lost . Nationalism is often one of the more shifty forms of secularization of the religious community, that flatter themselves to be in harmony with the deep feelings of their people.

In our meetings, year after year, a culture of dialogue has matured, inspired by the different religious traditions. It is not a front of religions against a secularized world. Instead, it is a culture that has confronted itself with the lay humanism, that represent a conspicuous part of the European spiritual tradition. The chapter of the dialogue between lay men and believers is not a secondary one for us. Interesting relations have grown out of that, in Italy, in Portugal, in Spain. Mario Soares , on his part - I remember he was in Assisi in 1994 - and Giuliano Amato have outstandingly participated in this dialogue. Dialogue between lay and religious humanism. Mons. Paglia, the author of an important book written in the climate of this dialogue, Lettera a un amico che non crede (Letter to a frind who does not believe), affirms that the way of dialogue is a "via amoris": "We can all tread on this via amoris, those who are believers in God and those who are just religious believers, those who are lay believers and those who are not believers at all. Obviously we are not there by chance, but by our own choice�"

It is a choice - he insists - because "instinct leads us to go on on our own way�"

Yes, instinct is to go on on our own way, worried by the inner problems of our own religious communities, prey to habits, to the difficulties of speaking, to the easy polemics so common in our societies where screaming is so frequent. It is an instinct of so many institutions. For many years the borders have tried to protect religiously or ethnic homogeneous countries. The nationalist utopia has often got read of minorities, deemed us an element of disturbance. But today people of different culture and faith co-exist in the same city. Nobody today can think of being protected by one's own borders, by one's own walls, by one's own welfare. The flows of population, the globalization processes, the world of communication compel us to live with others, with others who are so different from us, who are far or come from far away. It is a real and virtual coexistence at the same time. We are all plunged in complexity and multiplicity. The young generations grow up on horizons of complexity and multiplicity. To go on one's own way, to close oneself in one's own world, to deny the existence of the other is often a sign of inadequacy. This holds true for the lay and the religious worlds.

Facing such a complex, multiple life religions have not disappeared as many forecasted at the beginning of the XX century, on the contrary they voice a question: the question of a soul for our life, of a soul for the world. Abraham Yeshoua, a lay Israeli writer wrote: "If you believe in something, indeed you offer your faith to the whole world". Every religion, notwithstanding the different systems and traditions, has the firm belief of the universal significance of its own faith. This universality expresses itself also in the respectful dialogue. Dialogue is that "reasonable harmony among religions", as Nicola Cusano writes in "De pace fidei" after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople and facing the project of a western crusade. His dream was a heavenly council of religions: to reason together on pace and faith in front of God.

Is diversity a great obstacle? To renounce to diversity means to jump in relativism, that makes everything uniform and without roots. It is not the feeling of the peoples. It's not the tradition faith. It's not the way of the Christians, but neither of the majority of the religious communities, I believe: "we can not get rid of religion - Yeshoua continues - otherwise we will find ourselves devoided of history and we will be prey to myths that will dominate us and close us in a vicious, terrible circle". There is a value in religious differences. Nicola Cusano adds: " Maybe letting diversity be, devotion will grow too". John Paul II answering the question why there are so many religions, said in "Varcare le soglie della speranza" ( Crossing the threshold of hope ): "You speak of many religions. On the contrary I will try to show which is the common fundamental element and the common root for these religions".

After all the idea of the universal religion, as if it were the unification in a mythical essence of religion, is born in drawing-room conversations and grows only in laboratories. It is an illuminist idea. The people's prayer, that springs from suffering, that matures in desperation, that expresses joy, follows secular treads. The great religious traditions have burdened themselves with the invocations of millions people, addressed not to men but to God. The prayers of millions people are rotted in deep identities.

Do religions, with their particularism, represent ah heritage of the past? Men and women stay often bewildered facing the process of globalization: in front of too large and intrusive horizons they often search for refuge under the shelter of various religious, but also ethnic, nationalistic, racial fundamentalisms.

The values of the spirit can not be taken on a back seat. We are believers who found in their great religious traditions an inheritance of peace and love, a via amoris that leads to dialogue. Differences do not discourage us, instead they represent the deep spiritual geography of the world. Difference and dialogue are the guides to widen our view on the whole world. They are the ways to find a sense in the co-existence among people of different religion. In fact, dialogue is not an academic deed, but it becomes a way of daily living for thousands and thousands of believers. Therefore, in the incoming days many questions, which are common to all, will press up. Can the different religious traditions help humanity to mature? I remember what Edgar Morin said about forgiveness, which is so necessary in a world always ready to judge but with little justice: "Forgiveness alone can make humanity progress". When the great religions speak of love, how can this stir a commitment towards a part of the world which is at the edge of development? Therefore we have focused on the problem of sub-African Africa.

To meet the great religious traditions, to grasp their spirituality does not mean to lose one's own identity in a modern market confusion. On the contrary it means to let love grow through mutual esteem in a complex world, full of thoughts, holiness, faith. It is a guarantee for the future of the world. We believe that culture and practice of the dialogue will have a significant stage in Lisbon, as there is great need of it in the contemporary world. This art of dialogue is a new one, but it is tied to ancient threads: it acts as the wise scribe of the Gospel, who takes from its treasure ancient and new things. It is the art of spiritual deepness, of facing the today problems, but it is also the art of human encounter. As Vincius de Moraes ,a Brazilian poet who well expresses the feeling of that country of co-existence among different cultures that is Brazil, said: "life, friend, is the art of encounter". The art of encounter is life! Indeed, today many believers understand what Martin Luther King said many years ago, in 1961:

"I search for my soul, but I did not see it
I search for my God, but he escaped me
I search for my brother and I found all the three".

The soul, God and the brother are decisive stages in each religion's search, and also in this meeting of ours, that we want to live as the art of encounter.