The Culture of Unity and Some of the Great Challenges of Humankind Today

Abstract

Abstract This text explores some of the great challenges present in the cultural landscape of today, such as globalization and its associated phenomena – (internationalisation and ultra-contemporaneousness); exasperated economism with its outcome in the scrap culture; the “piecemeal third world war”, according to Pope Francis’ effective expression, which is connected with a widespread and still poorly understood post-humanism and transhumanism; nihilism and the eclipse of religion as an institution. It considers the light that might be shed by the culture arising from the Focolare’s charism of unity, in order to address these challenges rigorously and without hasty demonizing. The overall picture is not intended to be negative but, without being naive, to offer an interpretation that is able to discern the work of the Spirit in the dramatic scenario of present times.