Oasis 10

The spiritual tradition and historical evolution of Shi’ism. Of the currents of Islam, it is characterised by the corpus of teachings attributed to the Fourteen Infallibles: Mohammed, his daughter Fatima and the twelve imams. And secondly by a hierarchical ‘clergy’ which frames and manages the lives of the faithful

The Christian tradition and new challenges /1. The intellectuals of the twentieth century used culture in opposition to nature, for anthropologists it must be cited only in the plural, and despite St. Paul, St. Augustine and the missionaries, the Church did not develop an explicit teaching in relation to it. Only with John Paul II did it become a habitual subject of theology.

The visit of the Pope to the Holy Land narrated by a Franciscan custodian. The doubts and the hopes on the eve; the emotional embrace with the small and frail Christian community; the delicacy of the dialogue with Jews and Muslims; respect for, and agreement with, the just aspirations of the two peoples: a pilgrim who crossed frontiers, even the most difficult ones.

Photo album

Exodus, fracture, the act of conversion: Christianity begun in this way. But the revolution worked by the person of Jesus is never destructive. Rather it transforms cultures, being itself culture.

The Islamic tradition and new challenges /3. The case of France. In the 1970s, with the end of immigration connected with work of the Muslim populations, their rooting became inevitable and the subject of identity became central. Faced with the request to give them institutional representation, a process begun that ended thirty years later.

The surprising results of research that began with the question: is it possible that such a fundamental text is as disordered as it appears? A work of structural decoding shows in reality that the Holy Book of Islam is very elaborate in literary terms and that its constructive rules are the same as those of the Bible.

In June 2009 Iran was shaken by a powerful tidal wave which for the first time since the revolution made inroads into the very bases of the power structure, without, however, managing to change it. A look at a country which for thirty years has been at the centre of international attention and concern, not least because this is something it wants.

Address of John Paul II to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Paris, 2 June 1980

In the teaching of Benedict XVI inter-religious dialogue is always intercultural dialogue and this corrects the purported separation between the domain of faith and the domain of reason

The Islamic Tradition and new challenges /2. The case of the United States of America. In American constitutional and political culture religions are well accepted and contribute in an essential way to civil life. But after 11 September Muslim communities had to deal with suspicion and the risk of isolation. The results of a survey carried out in the Chicago area.