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The Centre promotes and spreads cultural events inspired by Raimon Panikkar's thought, according to a dialogical approach in front of our pluralistic, complex reality

CIRPIT draws its inspiration from Raimon Panikkar's thought and from the Seminars of his Centre d'Estudis Intercultural, founded in Tavertet (Catalunya) on October 15th 1988. CIRPIT intends to keep alive its basic principles referred to the cosmotheandric reality, the human holistic dimension (body-mind-spirit) and the consequent synergy of thought, action and contemplation. For this reason the promoters mean to follow Raimon Panikkar's oral teaching of life and thought . Consequentially they join his project of intercultural cooperation, aiming to preserve and renew the search after authentically living values such as peace, social justice and spirituality, through "the dialogical dialogue" among traditions, in the same spirit of Panikkar's Centre.

The Center is in continuity with the thought of Raimon Panikkar, a Spanish Roman Catholic priest, theologian, chemist, philosopher and a proponent of inter-religious dialogue. As a scholar, he specialized in comparative religion. The life itself of Panikkar was a meeting between religions. Hindi father and Catholic mother, Catalan but also Indian, he is really a personality-bridge, living testimony of the exceptional opportunity that can derive from the fertile crossroads of the two cultures, scientific and humanistic (his first degree is in Chemistry, the other in Philosophy and Theology); as well as the two mental universes, the Western and the Eastern, which he has constantly crossed, without ever failing to the fidelity of his identity as a Christian and a priest (he was ordained in 1946). He will say of himself: "I left Christian, I discovered Hindu and Buddhist return, without ceasing to be a Christian". His solid knowledge of Western philosophical tradition and of the philosophical and spiritual traditions of the East have made him a man of dialogue. He does not mean dialogue as an abstract, theoretical activity, based on beliefs, but as an in-depth relationship in which the collaboration of the other is sought for mutual fulfillment, since wisdom consists in knowing how to listen.

Raimon Panikkar was a priest and theologian "sui generis", who went through all the great religious traditions without losing his identity and fidelity to the Church of Rome even when some of his positions were discussed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ( former Holy Office). Never removed from the space of the Catholic Church, Panikkar has also gained through these vicissitudes a freedom and authoritativeness of thought that even the critics of the past recognize today, while awards of prestigious cultural institutions reiterate the value and courage of his work. Today the Catholic Church welcomes the initiatives proposed by the Intercultural Center dedicated to Raimon Panikkar.

For the last year of high schools:
presentation of the book by R. PNIKKAR, The Tower of Babel. Peace and pluralism, Culture of Peace editions, 1990.
In this volume the author argues against what he calls "colonial pacifism", produced by the "armed reason" of rich countries. According to Panikkar, offering a solution can only be a complex and pluralistic cultural model.