Culture is key to interreligious dialogue, says Vatican official

Published: 2006-03-13

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Culture is the key to engaging in dialogue with people of other religious faiths and those who profess no religious beliefs, said the head of the Vatican's councils for culture and interreligious dialogue. Through culture, Catholics can reach out to those in their communities and discuss the importance of basic human values, French Cardinal Paul Poupard told Catholic News Service in an interview before he was named interim president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue March 11. The cardinal has been president of the Pontifical Council for Culture since 1988. Culture is not just about colorful local customs, culinary specialties, or what hair or clothing styles each new generation of young people have adopted; "culture is the soul of a people," he said. It includes how people see or define concepts such as "love, suffering, the 'Weltanschauung'" or the overall perspective from which one interprets the world, he said. Pope John Paul II created the Pontifical Council for Culture in 1982 with the aim of helping the world's cultures encounter the message of the Gospel. He named then-Archbishop Poupard head of the new council's executive committee, then president of the council six years later.

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