We sometimes understandably dismiss religion because of its at times baleful contribution to human development, its formidable braking effect on equality and freedom for women, for LGBTIQ+ and its toxic dalliance with politics across history including today. At the same time, religion provides a transcendent dimension embedded widely in every continent and culture and particularly in hearts and minds, which if properly harnessed could build dialogical bridges across the many cavernous differences.

Can religions of the world play in the here and now a significant role in building “with other religious and secular actors on the basis of a common ethical foundation of care, love and respect” a wholly new, wholesome, culture of embrace, not disgrace? Let‘s look at what potential exists, what possible roadmaps can be devised, for making the world’s religions and religious actors generators of, collaborators in, the seminal watershed that can move us out of bunkers and trenches which ironically reinforce instability and global precatiousness and help make us instead wherever we are in the world, open shelters of care for all the earth, shepherds of all its peoples.

We are pleased to welcome Mary McAleese as a guest of the Conceptions of Human Flourishing program.