New York Encounter to Address ‘Polarized Culture’ Jan. 12-14

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Four prelates of the Church, including Cardinal Dolan, will take part in the 2018 New York Encounter, a three-day public cultural festival that showcases panel discussions, artistic performances and special exhibits.

The annual gathering will be held Friday to Sunday, Jan. 12-14, at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 W. 18th St. in Manhattan. The theme, “An ‘Impossible’ Unity,” will address “the fragmentation in today’s polarized culture,” and explore “what might regenerate a unified sense of the self and of our society.”

Cardinal Dolan will lead a panel of speakers for “On Pilgrimage Toward Unity: The Life of Dorothy Day” Sunday, Jan. 14, at 2 p.m. The other speakers are Tom Cornell, associate editor of the Catholic Worker, and Margaret Laracy, a clinical psychologist and co-curator of the Encounter exhibit.

At 4 p.m. the same day, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, will join Sayyid Mohammad Baqir Kashmiri, chairman of the Imam Mahdi Association of Marjaeya, and Joseph Weiler, a law professor at New York University, for “Abraham and the Birth of the ‘I’: Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim Perspectives.”

Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston will celebrate Mass Sunday, Jan. 14, at 9 a.m., with music provided by the Choir of Communion and Liberation.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, will participate in a discussion on the relationship between integral human development and economy in “The Fundamental Economic Resource: The Human Person,” Saturday, Jan. 13, at 10 a.m. Also addressing the topic will be Christopher Barrett, deputy dean of the College of Business at Cornell University, and Sara Sievers, associate dean of policy and practice, Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

Encounter opens Friday, Jan. 12, at 6:30 p.m. with music and a conversation with John Bartlett, a retired FDNY firefighter, and Sergeant Conor McDonald of the NYPD Patrol Service Bureau, son of the late NYPD Detective Steven McDonald.

Encounter was founded in 2009 by the Catholic lay ecclesial movement, Communion and Liberation.

This year’s gathering includes a special event with international witnesses to the life of the late Father Luigi Giussani, on the occasion of the release of his biography in English. Father Giussani founded Communion and Liberation in Milan, Italy, in 1954.

Except for a performance on Saturday evening, all events are free, and no registration is necessary.

Information: www.newyorkencounter.org/2018-program/