Article February 7, 2000 Issue

"May peace prevail"

A report of the Parliament of the World's Religions held in Cape Town, South Africa, in December

By Kim Shippey

The 1999 Parliament of the World's Religions brought together seven thousand people representing the diversity of the world's religions and spiritual traditions. They gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, December 1-8, to "explore religious and spiritual responses to some of the critical issues confronting humanity at the threshold of a new century."

The first Parliament of the World's Religions was held in 1893, as part of the Christopher Columbus anniversary exposition in Chicago, and marked the beginning of dialogue between the spirtual traditions of the East and the West. In 1993, the parliament was reborn in the same city.

Then the international planning committee took a dramatic step forward when it chose Cape Town's District Six — once a scene of traumatic forced removals under the apartheid policy — as the "spiritual holding ground" for the third parliament.

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