Mission and History
Our goal is to offer opportunities for education, making it possible to look with openness, curiosity and critical judgment at every aspect of reality.
WHO WE ARE
Crossroads Cultural Center is an initiative of Paideia, Inc., a (501)(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation. It was established in New York in 2004 by a few members of Communion and Liberation, the international movement in the Roman Catholic Church that was founded in Italy in 1954 by Msgr. Luigi Giussani. These friends shared an interest in the relationship between religion and culture, more specifically on the ways in which Christianity, by revealing the ultimate meaning of reality, gives new impulse to the human desire for knowledge. Crossroads currently operates through local branches in New York, Washington (DC), and New Bedford (MA).
OUR GOAL AND IDEALS
Our goal is to offer opportunities for education, making it possible to look with openness, curiosity and critical judgment at every aspect of reality.
Our ideals are summed up by the suggestion of Saint Paul: "Test everything; retain what is good." In our experience, the mark of a Christian culture is that it fosters interest in the full spectrum of reality, rather than focusing on a predetermined set of “religious” issues. A sign of its authenticity is the ability, or at least the desire, to encounter people from all walks of life, and to look for and appreciate everything that is true, good and worthwhile in the various expressions of human life. These expressions include science, the arts, politics, journalism and the media, theology, history, economy, sociology, and education.
For us, this openness and desire is the fruit of the education received in the Roman Catholic Church.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “CULTURE”?
Culture is a systematic and critical awareness of reality; it is the free development of our human need and capacity for knowing and interpreting everything in reality. Knowledge is a primary need of every person and not something that belongs to the “experts.” Culture is an activity proper to every person, because nobody can live without constantly developing and communicating to others a certain awareness of reality. Human curiosity is stirred by wonder – you walk out your door and things are there; life is given, a new and unexpected event that awakens the desire to know its meaning. This focus on reality as event (and not on ideas) determines the style, method, and priority of our cultural work.
Hence:
- We prize encountering people, because every human being is an irreducible novelty. We want to meet them at the "crossroads" of life, regardless of any cultural, religious or social boundary.
- We value beauty, because it sparks the wonder and attraction at the origin of human experience.
- We are interested in the events that shape our world, because what happens always contains a suggestion, a hint of something that affects and may change our lives.
- We cherish appreciating and testing our heritage, because the fabric of our lives is woven from all the events that happened before us.
WHAT WE DO
- We organize panel discussions, conferences, lectures, seminars, artistic performances, concerts and public interviews that fall under one of five categories: “Human Affairs,” “Memory and Identity,” “Face to Face with…,” “Beauty Will Save the World” and “To Know More About...” (seminars). Our events categories are organized in cycles (two per year, Spring and Fall), with an average of one event per month in each city.
- We have a blog (“Paper Clippings”) for online discussion of newspaper articles selected on a semi-weekly basis.
- We publish a monthly e-mail newsletter (“Crossroads of the Month”).
- We sponsor and help promote events organized by other organizations or groups of people (“friends of Crossroads”) who have been inspired by Crossroads.
- We make available to campus ministries, high schools, and parishes some of our speakers and their most enriching presentations (“Crossroads on the Road”).
- Crossroads has a book reading list as well as a classical music listening list.