INTERRELIGIOUS MEETING "IMAGINING PEACE TO CREATE ALTERNATIVES TO WARS AND DIVISIONS"

Paris | 22 September 2024
Parent Category: Iniziative (EN) - Category: Maison de la Paix (EN)

A delegation from the "United States of the World" and the "Fondazione Mediterraneo" took part in the interreligious meeting promoted by the Community of Sant'Egidio at the Palais des Congrès in Paris entitled ‘Imagining Peace’. Speakers at the inaugural session included French President Emmanuel Macron, Andrea Riccardi, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris Chems-Eddine Hafiz, the Grand Rabbi of France Haim Korsia, Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, and Catholic Archbishop Laurent Ulrich.
Secretary-General Michele Capasso emphasised the importance of ‘creativity’ in imagining and building peace, reporting on the experience of almost forty years of commitment that, thanks to creativity, has produced concrete results.

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WITH THE 34TH ANNIVERSARY OF RAFFAELE CAPASSO'S DEATH, CELEBRATIONS BEGIN FOR THE CENTENARY OF HIS BIRTH

Naples, San Sebastiano al Vesuvio | 21 September 2024
Parent Category: Iniziative (EN) - Category: Maison de la Paix (EN)

A Eucharistic celebration dedicated to the 34th anniversary of the death of Raffaele Capasso, mayor of the reconstruction of the town destroyed by the eruption of 19 March 1944, was held in the Sanctuary of San Sebastiano Martire.
Present in the church were his sons Michele and Pino with his wife Barbara, the mayor Giuseppe Panico with a number of councillors and administrators, the prefect of Naples Michele Di Bari - who came to the church immediately after the end of the meeting of the G7 culture ministers and after receiving the public thanks of the newly appointed Italian Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli - the headmistress Rosalba Rotondo and many friends who wished to pay homage to a man who made the recent history of San Sebastiano.

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THE "G7 CULTURE" IN NAPLES

Naples | 19 September 2024
Parent Category: Iniziative (EN) - Category: Maison de la Paix (EN)

The "G7 Culture" took place in Naples. The Italian Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, welcomed delegations to the National Archaeological Museum in Naples to take part in the work of the G7 Culture in the Royal Palace.
After a tour of the museum, led by the Director General of Museums, Massimo Osanna, the maestro Gabriele Lavia, a legend of theatre and cinema, performed before the statue of Hercules Farnese a moving reading in Latin of a passage from "De Reditu Suo" by Rutilio Namaziano. Giovanni Pascoli's Italian translation and the English version were projected onto four large monitors at the sides of the stage to allow everyone to grasp the universal message of the work.
Also present at the Mann were, among others, Undersecretaries Lucia Borgonzoni and Gianmarco Mazzi, the President of the Cultural Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Federico Mollicone, the President of the Campania Region, Vincenzo De Luca, and the Mayor of the city, Gaetano Manfredi.
Minister Giuli then took the floor, representing the Latin poet's ‘Rome’ as a synthesis of everything we mean by "culture" today: "Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam, You have given one homeland to peoples scattered in a hundred places,’ the Minister recalled, ‘only culture can succeed in this. And today, to our distinguished guests of the G7, we say: welcome home".
The Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, then presented the "Two Years of Ukrainian Resistance" medal to Mykola Tochytskyi, Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine, during the opening session of the G7 Ministerial.
"It is not only a sign of closeness and respect - said Giuli - but also a sign of an overall project to help Ukraine. The proceeds from the sales of the medal will go to support the activities of the children's hospital in Lviv, which is committed to the treatment and care of Ukrainian children affected by the war".
Minister Giuli also donated the medal to the other G7 representatives, in recognition of their commitment to support Ukraine and to encourage them to work together to defend the cultural identity of a nation whose cultural heritage has also been attacked and affected.
The medal, struck in the workshops of the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, was strongly desired by the Italian government to celebrate the resistance of the Ukrainian people against the Russian invasion.
Members of the delegations visited the United States of the World headquarters and the Museum of Peace, welcomed by Secretary-General Michele Capasso.

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MED 24 - PILGRIMS OF HOPE. BUILDERS OF PEACE

Tirana | 15 September 2024
Parent Category: Iniziative (EN) - Category: Maison de la Paix (EN)

A delegation from the "United States of the World" and the "Fondazione Mediterraneo" took part in the fourth meeting on the reflection of the Churches of the Mare Nostrum, launched in Bari in 2020 and then continued in Florence in 2022 and Marseilles in 2023.
Well-educated young people oriented towards the spirit of fraternity can open unexpected doors of dialogue and contribute to the construction of a more just and peaceful world": these are the words of Pope Francis pronounced a year ago at the "Rencontres Méditerranéennes" (Med23) in Marseille. Following these indications of the Pontiff and moving forward along that same path of communion, from 15 to 21 September about fifty young people from twenty-five Mediterranean and Black Sea nations took part in Tirana, Albania, in the meeting "Med24 - Pilgrims of hope. Builders of peace".
It was a touching experience of life and faith that directed the organising committee's choice on Albania for this new edition of the Mediterranean encounters, which takes place, among other things, on the tenth anniversary of the Holy Father's visit to Tirana (21 September 2014). The motivation for choosing Tirana as the venue for the event also has to do with the multiple cultural and religious realities that the country contains. For this reason, the programme of Med24 (curated by the same committee as Med23 in Marseilles) touched on various aspects: cultural, spiritual and religious that bring the experience of the whole man in his variety and reality. The Archbishop of Tirana welcomed young people from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, the Middle East, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Romania, Greece, Croatia, Kosovo, Malta, France, Italy, Spain and, of course, Albania.
"The religious reality of Albania - said Secretary-General Michele Capasso - is never a reason for difference or rivalry and makes them united also as a people and this provides a model of real, peaceful, true coexistence, even in the diversity of each one. At a time when the Mediterranean appears confused between wars, conflicts and migrants who die in the sea, where young people sometimes lose their values, it is nice to see that in these young people there is a desire to come together, under the light of the Pope, who inspires them to look at the signs of the times that are also in this Mediterranean, and then, starting from Mare Nostrum, recreate peace and spread it throughout the world. As Giorgio La Pira used to say, there will be peace in the world if first of all there is peace in the Mediterranean".

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