Becoming citizens of a plural Europe: interconvictional spaces and practices

Book excerpt: "It is as difficult as it is urgent to institute, beyond any conventional formalism signifying little, real spaces for dialogue, consultative bodies capable of developing and managing a true dialogue between moral, social and political convictions of European citizens who claim to belong to basic Christian, religious, or organizational convictions. It is with strength that the citizens of a plural Europe demand today the institution of new practices of deliberative democracy." Interconvictionality: a concept broader than that of interreligious and of intercultural, that the men and women who speak here place at the heart of their reflections on the building, on the future and the functioning of the European Union. Between theory and pragmatism, the authors discuss and go deeply into a concept that tends towards more and more dialogue and tolerance, consultation, and the ability to see the overall picture... A concept that does not want to exclude any facet of the societies of our European mosaic, that wants to include believers, atheists and agnostics, and that will lie at the foundation of an ever more democratic community, all the stronger by its diversity. It is for a true political transformation that this work pleads, resolutely borne forward by its faith in Europe.