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THE POPE IN NAPLES SPEAKS ABOUT MIGRANTS, PEACE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

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Naples  ||  | 21 June 2019
Iniziative (EN) - Maison de la Paix (EN)

The president Michele Capasso with Don Giadio De Biasio does not hide the emotion: "To hear the Pope speak of hybridisation, of the theology of the context and of dignity and fraternity leaves a sign because on these themes we have already been confronted 30 years ago and then in the Forum Civil Euromed of Naples (1997), when very few dealt with the Mediterranean. Today Pope Francis confirms that our ideas and our proposals were forerunners of the times. It is significant that precisely from Naples the Pope makes a strong appeal for a theology of welcome based on dialogue and proclamation and that contributes to building a fraternal society among the peoples of the Mediterranean".
The Pope is in Naples for the meeting on "Theology after Veritatis Gaudium in the Mediterranean context", promoted by the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy - San Luigi section - Naples.
«How to feed a tolerant and peaceful coexistence that translates into authentic fraternity? How can the acceptance of the other and of those who are different from us prevail in our communities because they belong to a religious and cultural tradition different from ours? How can religions be ways of brotherhood rather than walls of separation? ". From the Posillipo hill overlooking the sea, these questions are intended to act as an incipit in the intervention that Pope Francis addresses to the listeners hidden under white umbrellas to shelter from the heat of the sun of Naples.
The large white stage in the square of a university, that of the headquarters of the Theological Faculty of Southern Italy, conceived as a bottomless box that frames the space of the Mare Nostrum in the distance, the "sea of ​​miscegenation", gives an idea of ​​that which wants to signify today this meeting of the Pope in this context: a door wide open to foster new perspectives of brotherhood between cultures and religions and horizons for a "theological pentecost", a renewal of ecclesiastical studies leading to a theology linked to reality, practice, of welcome, because even "doing theology is an act of mercy". A workshop for the meeting.
To open the work of the Naples conference with Pope Francis was Father Pino Di Luccio, dean of the San Luigi section of the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy, greeting the Pontiff. «In the past few months they have asked me how I convinced them to come back and participate in this conference. I think it's a special gift of the Holy Spirit ".