Dr. Montserrat Gas Aixendri, a lecturer in Marital Law and the director of the Institute of Advanced Family Studies, and Dr. Francisca Pérez Madrid, a lecturer in State Ecclesiastical Law at the Universitat de Barcelona, analyse the current state of the management of religious diversity in their new book «La gobernanza de la diversidad religiosa. Personalidad y territorialidad en las sociedades multiculturales» (The Governance of Religious Diversity: Personality and Territoriality in Multicultural Societies).
Published by Thomson Reuters Aranzadi, the book compiles analyses from more than twenty lecturers of some of the legal problems currently arising from the management of religious diversity.
The key issue under study is the possibility of a system in which regional and personal regulations coexist for a religiously plural society. With an eye to both the past and the future, the book takes a close look at two issues of particular interest: housing and multicultural education.
The study specifically focuses on the current realities of Spain and Israel, as well as other international questions. “The millet system, which originated in the Ottoman Empire and is still in use in the State of Israel, is one of the interesting concepts discussed in the book”, the authors explain in a blurb on the back cover of the book. “In canon law, the concept of personal autonomy has also afforded a means of protecting minorities and individuals. Moreover, a number of legal institutions and concepts include references to personal criteria, as in the cases of marriage, the right to asylum and protection against incitement to hatred.”
The book is a compilation of reflections from many scientific disciplines on some of the issues to be taken into consideration for the sound governance of religious diversity.
