c. 2000 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ Some 1,000 religious and spiritual leaders from throughout the world have begun what organizers are calling a groundbreaking peace summit that will commit them and their followers to tackle the issues of peacemaking, a global environmental crisis and worsening poverty.

The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders formally began its work late Monday (Aug. 28) at the United Nations General Assembly with prayers from a cross-section of 30 religious leaders of varying faiths. On Tuesday (Aug. 29), leaders issued a collective call for dialogue on an ambitious agenda that organizers hope will result in a formal religious advisory council for the United Nations.

“Today’s meeting is an opportunity for religious, spiritual and political leaders, as well as their followers, to look within, and to consider what they can do to promote justice, equality, reconciliation and peace,” U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in an opening address Tuesday.

As of Tuesday morning, there had no formal public mention at the summit of a controversy that has overshadowed the gathering _ the exclusion of the Dalai Lama, the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, exiled spiritual leader of 15 million Tibetan Buddhists and long a symbol of resistance to China’s rule over Tibet.

In a move that has rankled a range of critics from Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu on the left to Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., on the right, the Dalai Lama was not invited to the conference in deference to China. Last week, Annan said the Dalai Lama had not been invited because of concern over China’s “sensitivities” to the issue.

The Dalai Lama had been invited to the closing two days of the summit, which are being held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, but he declined the offer.

While the summit is not formally a U.N.-sponsored event, the first two days of the event are being held at the U.N. General Assembly, and the summit has been organized and funded by groups with close ties to the U.N.

In an interview following Monday’s opening ceremonies, Brahma Das, director of the Interfaith Call for Universal Religious Freedom and Freedom of Worship in Tibet and a lead organizer of protests against the summit, said he planned to present summit organizers with a petition signed by some 6,500 religious leaders protesting the action and asking the U.N. to apologize to the Dalai Lama.

“It was a glaring snub,” Brahma Das said.

Saying that many delegates revere the Dalai Lama, Brahma Das said the issue of his exclusion might be introduced at some point at the summit, though he said organizers had so tightly organized the event it was doubtful the issue would be publicly discussed. “This will be little more than a photo-op,” he said of the summit, which continues through Thursday (Aug. 31).

Those addressing the opening ceremonies acknowledged that the results of the conference might not be immediately discernable, but that it was important enough that so many religious leaders were assembled for the first time at the United Nations.

“I believe just your gathering in this hall makes a difference,” said Bawa Jain, the secretary-general of the summit, who said the meeting would make the General Assembly hall a “sanctuary” of prayer. He said the meeting’s significance would still be felt a week later when a “millennium” summit of world leaders will assemble in the same hall.

In fact, the summit’s opening day featured a kaleidoscope of religions and faith traditions on display, and observers said it was unlikely that the U.N. General Assembly had ever witnessed such a variety of color before, from the headdresses of Native American leaders to the ornate robes of leaders of Zoroastrianism. Adding to the display were musical invocations ranging from a gospel performance of “Amazing Grace” to an Inca blessing performed by the Q’ero Elders from Peru.

Taking in the rich panorama, the Rev. James Forbes, senior pastor at New York City’s Riverside Church, called the assembly “a global fraternity of holy men and women.”

“We are here to stop, to look and to listen to each other,” he said. “We were once strangers in the past, but now we are neighbors in the global village.”

A corporate sense of responsibility in the midst of globalization and rapid technological change was a theme invoked by many religious leaders in prayers and calls for dialogue.

Numerous speakers said the summit would not be a success if religious leaders did not acknowledge that religious institutions had often failed at the task of peacemaking and reconciliation.

“Religion has often been yoked to nationalism, stoking the flames of violent conflict and setting group against group,” Annan said. “Religious leaders have not always spoken when their voices could have helped combat hatred and persecution, or could have roused people from indifference. Religion is not itself to blame. As I have often said, the problem is usually not with the faith, but with the faithful.”

KRE END HERLINGER