Note: This April 21-25 event has been canceled. Please check back on this page for further updates, including a possible rescheduling of the Festival of Faiths this fall.
In 1985, the Cathedral Heritage Foundation set out to renovate Louisville’s spectacular Cathedral of the Assumption, the third-oldest Catholic cathedral in continuous use in the United States. What followed was a restoration that spanned a decade, during which time the foundation’s mission broadened not only to revive the cathedral to its former glory, but also to promote understanding and cooperation among all faiths.
The Cathedral Heritage Foundation, which eventually would become the Center for Interfaith Relations, created the Festival of Faiths as an expression of this expanded mission, uniting diverse faith traditions in a hospitable and celebratory environment.
The festival has since grown in prominence and scope, drawing thousands of attendees and presenting engaging keynote speakers ranging from the Dalai Lama to Deepak Chopra, Robert Kennedy Jr. to Fr. Richard Rohr, Diane Rehm to Woman Stands Shining (also known as Pat McCabe), and many more. The Huffington Post ranked the Festival of Faiths sixth in its list of America’s top spiritual travel destinations.
It’s an impressive evolution that began under the leadership of Christina Brown, co-founder of the Cathedral Heritage Foundation.
“We should be exceptionally joyous and proud of our community, for we have conceived and founded our country’s first Festival of Faiths, a model of community at its best, an inspiring celebration of our own rich religious history, and a celebration of our individual and our community’s collective religious goodness,” Brown said at the culmination of the inaugural festival in 1996.
In its early years, the festival recounted a history of religious traditions with the goal of fostering tolerance and building bridges. Eventually, that mission expanded, seeking not only to unite and enlighten but also to effect positive change through interfaith understanding. With this broadened mission came a name change for the Cathedral Heritage Foundation, and in 2006, the Center for Interfaith Relations was created.
As the Festival of Faiths approaches its 25th anniversary, Brown continues to play an instrumental role in the annual event. In 2013, however, her son, Owsley Brown III, took up the mantle as festival chair. He’s proven to be a visionary leader, cultivating the festival as a contemplative space in a world that’s increasingly complex and often divisive.
“During this crucial time in the history of our world, we aspire to engage our broadest perspective in helping an honest conversation occur around the fundamental question of what it means to be human,” he said in introducing the 2019 festival, Sacred Cosmos: Faith and Science. “Inasmuch as faith, beyond religion itself, can be rooted in truth, it is our dream that through such faith, we can encourage universal and revelatory truth to arise.”
The 25th anniversary Festival of Faiths, April 21-25, will continue seeking that truth by examining the importance of stories at the heart of humanity. Sacred Stories: Contemplation and Connection will be a unique expression of the festival’s history, celebrating the power of narratives to instill meaning and connection in a complex world.
Through dialogue, music, poetry, art and film, this interfaith celebration will investigate the space where ancient and modern narratives coexist in our lives, instilling a sense of belonging and purpose, and providing context for contemporary topics of concern.
Festival of Faiths
April 21-25
Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, Louisville
festivaloffaiths.org