Prof. Dr. Hans Küng

"Who could guess in 1899 during the heigth of believe in progress (Lenin an exiled in Siberia, Stalin a student of theology in Tiflis, Mussolini is 16  and Hitler 10 years old!), what one might expect in the 20th century? For only one thing we all hope in 1999: The 21st century nay become better than the 20th with its gigantic progress and its gigantic wars and crimes, archipelago Gulag and holocaust. But the 21st century will only be better,  if the new world order without fundamentalism, but also without a pluralism out of choice is buildt upon a basic consensus over common values, standards and attitudes. A basic consensus, which combines rights and duties, autonomous self determination and solidarity in responsibility and yet may be religiosly rooted again. In any case a new, ethical backed world order.  
That all is not a fantastic illusion. This is in deed a realistic vision. It may be summed up in four sentences:

No peace among nations without peace among religions.
No peace among religions without dialogua between religions.
No dialogue between religions without global ethical standards.
No survival of our globe without a global ethos, a world ethos."