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Fostering Human Dignity and Freedom

At the beginning of Nostra aetate, the Church calls for mutual understanding with Muslims in the interests of “peace, liberty, social justice, and moral values.” This paper strives to achieve such an understanding in light of the fragile state of democracy in today’s world. The paper first presents the Church’s approach to democracy through an analysis of the work of the philosopher Jacques Maritain and the Second Vatican Council. It then presents representative views from Islam: the work of the Sunni legal scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl and the Shi’ite scholar Naser Ghobadzadeh. By appealing to the Jesuit scholarDavid Hollenbach’smethodology of “dialogic universalism,” the paper argues finally that there is a rich confluence between the two traditions: Their basic commitment to the dignity and freedom of the human person implies a respect for pluralism, a reverence for reason, and a call for self-transcendence, all of which can serve to enhance democracy.