Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) – The Meeting for Friendship Among the Peoples in Rimini is a grand social event, a festival of encounters, culture, music, and shows that takes place every year at the end of August, and that over the years has become an opportunity for social, political, and cultural debate, and for summer rest and relaxation. The 2007 Meeting was attended by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and Bishop Rino Fisichella and its theme was: “The truth is the destiny for which we have been created.” This 28th Meeting included 373 speakers, the creation of 12 displays, 20 shows; 700,000 visitors and 3,211 volunteers, youth and adults of Italy and beyong that each year organize this event free of charge. For the second time in a row, the most significant testimonies have been collected in a book compiled by Giorgio Vittadini, President of the Foundation for Subsidiarity, entitled, “La verità, il nostro destino” (meaning “The truth, our destiny”; published by Mondadori). The publication has also been presented at the Italian Embassy to the Holy See. “The Meeting last year, what this book contains, is an affirmation of the subject of truth. It is not an abstract idea, nor is it subjective, nor individual, but it has a value, utility, a public relevance,” explained Emilia Guarnieri, President of the Meeting.
Centered on Benedict XVI’s quote, “man desires the truth,” the Meeting has had a public use, as “the theme of truth and the quest to find it is something that unites and does not divide. This means that man truly desires the truth, that there is truly a tendency in all men towards the truth. And starting from here, man finds his unity.” Guarnieri continued. The idea behind this book, as was present in the edition that preceded it, is that the cultural wealth of the Meeting may not become simply a week in August, but an encounter that remains a lasting reality, like the book itself.
“The truth is something that interests us all,” said Giorgio Vittadini, President of the Foundation for Subsidiarity, in pointing out how the book unites the talks that were given during the week in Rimini and explaining that the Meeting’s theme was almost a statement in relation to the never-given Speech of the Holy Father Benedict XVI in the “La Sapienza” University (in Rome), in which the Pope reflects on the fact that the question of truth exists in all men. The high point of the Meeting, in the personal trajectory of President Vittadini, were the testimonies to the truth: from Rosa Busingye, who works with women with AIDS in Uganda, to Innocente and Erasmo Figini that with “Cometa” give disoriented youth a second chance, to Marcos and Cleuza, who in Brazil have offered a home and a will to be educated to the people “without a land.” The next Meeting will be on the theme “O protagonisti o nessuno” (“Protagonists or nobody”), and will take place in Rimini August 24-30. (PC) (Agenzia Fides 29/5/2008)
