Aiming to reach beyond barriers of culture, religion, and nationalities, the 2nd Ignatian Conversation was held yesterday, September 22 at the Finster Auditorium, Ateneo de Davao University.

Founder of Silsilah Dialogue Movement, Fr. Sebastian D’Ambra,PIME lead the conversation centering his talk about unity rather than divide, peace rather than conflict, and faith rather than materialism. The main speaker proposed three concrete concepts as the solution: friendship, spirituality and humility.

The Italian priest and missionary also shared his experiences, highlighting the goodness in each person, whether Christian, Muslim or Lumad.
“To show that we are faithful to our own culture, religion and nation, we have to move by example. We are called to promote radical love for radical change. We need to rediscover culture, religion and nationalities, not as elements to divide us but an expression of harmony,” D’ambra expressed.

“We should be able to listen and put ourselves in the level of others, not to judge but to understand and in the process, respect. In means also, to know more about the others’ view while sharing your own perspectives,” he added.

Throughout the talk, Fr. D’Ambra challenged everyone to move beyond hope and not just focus on materialistic things.

“All of us, especially the youth today are disoriented because the model that we see now do not reflect the missing values that we expect today. What influences us is the society that is guided by the Law of Profit. This is the real dangerous drug that we have to fight,” D’Ambra stated.

During the open forum, University President Joel Tabora, S.J. gave a meaningful synthesis and shared his own reflection for the said event.
“We need to understand what our spirituality really is in order to understand how we should shape culture and how we should shape our nation. Our religions say that there is only one God and only one religion.

“But based on reflection, I think we may also have to say that there is only one religion but God created us diverse. In this diversity, we must find one another and we must find God without killing one another,” Tabora said.

College and senior high school students, teaching staff of the different levels and non-teaching personnel of the University took part of the said event. In an interview, Vinson shared what the Ateneans can do to contribute in this matter.

“We can start in our own little ways. Reaching beyond culture, religion and nationalities start with the little things. Siguro we can start by influencing our other friends, who we can say are less sensitive to others.

“We can see them in social media, posting insensitive jokes, and other stuff. We can start here. Let’s stop, or at least avoid engaging in these petty and inconsiderate practices,” Vinson suggested.