Annals of the "Ovidius" University of Constanţa. Political Science Series (Dec 2021)
Pope Francis’ “Culture of Encounter” and “Fraternity”: Enhancing the Postsecular Discourse in IR
Abstract
On February 4, 2019, the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together was signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam Ahmad al-Tayeb in Abu Dhabi. The moment marked a historical breakthrough in the area of interreligious dialogue becoming one of the broadest commented interreligious initiatives of the last decades. But it also symbolized the changing role of religious discourse in its relation to the political discourse as well as their mutual “entanglement”. Soon the series of events that followed visibly evidenced the growing role of the religious ideas and religious actors in the global discussion on the most problematic contemporary issues and their increasingly collaborative relations to non-religious actors, both at governmental and non-governmental level. As such they became the exemplification of the new postsecular discourse that had been conceptualized two decades ago calling for a more inclusive approach towards religion in the public sphere as well as for a “mutual process of learning” between the religious and the secular domains. In the area of international politics, it has been further developed into the concept of the religious and inter-religious engagement, proposing some practical tools for a more effective exploitation of the religious potential. Adopting the IR perspective, the article aims to analyze both normatively and empirically how the religiously based initiatives and ideas have contributed to international debate developing its own concepts such as “culture of encounter” and “fraternity” that from a secular point of view represents the call for political inclusion and non-discrimination of minorities (Petito, Daou, and Driessen 2021, 10). Based on the examination of the Holy See’s documents and through application of comparative, interpretative, and discourse analysis methods, the main focus will be put on Pope Francis’ teaching who formulated both concepts as the leading topics of his pontificate. Realized in the global context through interreligious dialogue, they constitute the exemplification of what Jodok Troy (2021) called “global politics from below”.
