New Delhi: With the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting just about a couple of weeks away, Italian Ambassador to India Vincenzo de Luca praised India’s G20 theme of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the earth is one family)” and said it strongly resonated with the Pope’s appeal for universal brotherhood as reflected in the term “Fratelli Tutti”.
Strongly batting for a continued global dialogue between various religions to promote understanding of all faiths, the Italian envoy pointed out that during the Italian G20 presidency in 2021, Italy had supported inter-faith understanding in supplementing the three “P”s of its vision — people, planet, prosperity — with the fourth “P” for peace.
The Italian envoy had recently organised an inter-religious dialogue to mark the International Day of Human Fraternity in which representatives of Bahai, Buddhist, Catholic, Hindu, Islamic, Jain and Sikh faiths participated.
The Italian envoy said, “The call to fundamental unity of all human and non-human beings on the face of the earth, contained in the Maha Upanishad and engraved in the entrance hall of the Parliament of India, strongly resonates with the Pope’s appeal for universal brotherhoodcontained in the encyclical ‘Fratelli Tutti’.”
“As a diplomat, I started wondering if those ideas, which are definitely ‘out of the diplomatic toolbox’, could provide a new paradigm to practitioners of international relations and help us overcome today’s new walls and fractures at a global level,” he added.
“Those divides, as for instance between the Global North and Global South, East and West, threaten the fraternity and unity which is urgently needed to ensure, first of all, peaceful coexistence among nations, along the founding principles of the UN Charter. … Italy welcomes … any initiative aimed at preserving freedom of religion and belief all over the world,” the Italian Ambassador said.
He added, “And without deeper fraternity and unity, also other global challenges such as poverty and inequality, energy and food crises, and most of all, climate change cannot be adequately addressed.
