Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Budapest (Agenzia Fides) - After setting a goal and a date 2009 the great meeting organised by the Focolari Movement to commemorate tragic facts in Hungary 50 years ago which brought to Budapest more than 11.000 people from 64 countries closed on 16 September. The purpose of the meeting was to demonstrate the innovative impact of fraternity on economies and on communications and find solutions to the widespread scourge of illegality and corruption and the political crisis.
“Now it is up to us: to our countries!”, announced Valeria Ronchetti and Giuseppe Di Giacomo, among Chiara Lubich’s closest co-workers. The goal is to promote fraternity to renew our cities. “Chiara Lubich had an idea: why not connect in three years time on a set day in 2009, all our cities in a network to demonstrate fragments of fraternity achieved?”. The event already has a name: “Many united cities for a united world”. A proposal welcomed with enthusiasm.
Justice, communication and politics were the themes at the centre of the last part of the meeting. Simone Borg, who teaches international law at the University of Louvain in Belgium affirmed: justice is not only repression. The sense of fraternity urges people to shoulder responsibility for situations of social suffering, to work to eliminate the causes, not remain silent in the face of injustices. Argentinean Marisa Gentiletti, married and mother of two daughters recently saw an eight year old grandchild disappear. In a country with a legal void which does not guarantee immediate police intervention, Marisa launched a vast awareness building campaign and concrete initiatives to protect minors sensitising public opinion, institutions and the police.
A challenge: communications. Fraternity, in this crucial field means a model of communications whose goal is a united world. The basis in the value of human dignity; the method is dialogue, the rule is love, which can transform communication radically. These traits were outlined by Manuel Bru, who teaches at San Pablo University - CEU di Madrid, Spain.
Fraternity opens new horizons also to the world of politics with the experience of MPPU Political Movement for Unity today present in 15 countries. It has been described as “and international workshop of common political activity among citizens, state officials, scholars, politicians committed at various levels, of different parties, who put fraternity at the basis of their lives”. MPPU president Lucia Fronza Crepaz, spoke of goals and achievements. “Choosing universal fraternity as a political category - she said - means having the courage to get to the roots of today’s political crisis”.
From this city of Budapest, which in 1956 lived dramatic hours marked by violence, 50 years on, comes new impulse for renewal, fraternity and hope which will irradiate in hundreds of cities on the five continents of the world . (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 18/9/2006, righe 36, parole 506)
