We are so very grateful to Vatican News for covering the Portraits in Faith press conference at the Vatican on October 21, 2025. The article is in Italian so we provide an English translation following the Italian below:

“Portraits in Faith,” those faces and images that leave space for the other

The book and multimedia project were presented in Rome as part of the Jubilee program "Open Doors," in collaboration with the Dicastery for Communication and Emotions To Generate Change. These are the stories of 500 people from different religions and spiritual traditions, collected from around the world by Daniel Epstein. Cardinal Koovakad: these are images that "speak of a common humanity." Paolo Ruffini: in dialogue we find "the essence of our faith."

Giada Aquilino - Vatican City

Interreligious dialogue grows through personal encounters and is expressed through faces, because "every portrait seems to leave room for the other, in a dialogue that is understanding and acceptance." This was highlighted by Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad, Prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, speaking this morning in Rome, in the Sala Marconi of Palazzo Pio, at the presentation of the book and multimedia project "Portraits in Faith," part of the Jubilee program "Open Doors," in collaboration with the Dicastery for Communication and Emotions to Generate Change.

Listen to the interview with Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad
(see audio clip in article)

Five years after the publication of Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis's encyclical letter on fraternity and social friendship, and on the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council's declaration on the Church's relations with non-Christian religions, promulgated by Saint Paul VI on October 28, 1965, "Portraits in Faith" presents the stories of 500 people from different religions and spiritual traditions around the world, collected over a 25-year period by Daniel Epstein, a Jewish marketing expert and photographer who has traveled the world between work and faith.

A Shared Humanity

In a time when "distances have disappeared, these photos tell us something new: they are not a reportage of irreconcilable realities, of unreachable worlds, but rather they speak to us of a common humanity, because the other is part of a brotherhood that unites us," the cardinal emphasized. "This project," added the Prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue in a conversation with Vatican media, "has allowed us to meet 500 people, get to know them, and hear about their lives and what they carry within them." Moreover, "interreligious dialogue is about trying to understand and respect others, with the responsibility of promoting harmony and peace, because," he recalled, "no war is a victory; those who pay the highest price are the poor, children, and women."

More Masks than Faces

Today, observed Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, "we live in a time in which faces have dissolved; we see more masks than faces," for example on social media. Photographs, on the other hand, "capture images and deliver them to us for memory. They take us back to the origins of who we are, brothers and sisters created in the image of God. They remind us that in dialogue, in the rediscovery of others, we find the essence of our faith."

Listen to the interview with Paolo Ruffini
(see audio clip in article)

The Imam of the Great Mosque of Rome, Nader Akkad, who, together with Abdellah Redouane, Secretary General of the Islamic Cultural Center of Italy, brought greetings from the Italian Muslim community to those present, also encouraged reflection on another photo, that of the embrace in 2019 between Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, on the occasion of the signing of the Declaration on Human Fraternity: that image evokes "the beauty" that lies in "our hearts" and "that is expressed in relationships." The wounded contemporary world, he reflected to our microphones, "thirsts for the beauty of relationships, which are then expressed in brotherly relationships," in which "common values, social justice, human dignity, peace" unite us in an interreligious dialogue that, he continued, "allows us to know ourselves as brothers in a faith expressed by God."

Listen to the interview with Imam Nader Akkad
(see audio clip in article)

A Respectful Friendship

At today's event, Daniel Epstein spoke of his journey that led him to discover the value of differences in breaking down "the wall of division," with the "ability to say: this is a human being." The stories told, added project curator Gina Alicea, are "full of living content." Because, in essence, interreligious dialogue is an encounter between people, but also between hearts, minds, and initiatives, in which a respectful friendship is cultivated, despite differences and diversities. A friendship "that lasts," as one of the 500 faces captured in the project, Sister Bernadette Reis of the Daughters of St. Paul, testified, because "when a person tells a story of faith, which is something intimate, a friendship can only be born." From “Portraits in Faith” it emerges that “the other is part of me and I am part of the other,” explained Lia Beltrami, creator of Emotions To Generate Change: “In the search for God and faith we are all strongly united by that yearning that carries us upward, whatever the path.”

Listen to the interview with Lia Beltrami
(see audio clip in article)