THE MAISON DE LA PAIX

 

CASA UNIVERSALE DELLE CULTURE

The Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture is a place strongly representative, in which will convey the knowledge of the different identities and cultures, structuring permanently initiatives aimed at the spreading of peace, necessary for the shared development.

The Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture (MdP) is a project conceived by Michele Capasso, approved by many Countries and international organizations. It is an architecture that keeps the memory of many Peace activities which created history, often more than the wars, but it is – above all – a space "to build” Peace.

The architectonical complex has an important symbolic worth: it represents the Countries of the World engaged in the Peace process and the Countries victim of the conflicts.

Proposed by the Fondazione Mediterraneo with the Maison des Alliances – together with the main adherent organizations, such as the Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, the League of Arab States, the "Anna Lindh" Euro-Mediterranean Foundation and others, the MdP represents a referent point for all the ones who dedicate their lives to peace.

The symbol of the MdP is the "Totem for Peace", an artwork by the Italian sculptor Mario Molinari which the Fondazione Mediterraneo is promoting all around the world, creating the network of the "Cities for Peace".

The first seat of the MdP was inaugurated on the 14th of June 2010 (Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture) in the historical building of the Grand Hotel de Londres in Naples.

The action of the Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture aims at improving the main activities of the "Universal Forum of Cultures" in: Barcelona (2004), Monterrey (2007), Valparaiso (2010) and Naples (2013).

The Maison de la Paix performs most of the initiatives jointly with the Maison de la Méditerranée.

 

Pope Francis in the homily this morning from Santa Marta called the world to the "ABYSS OF INDIFFERENCE".
We were in Lampedusa on 8 July 2013 when Pope Francis alerted the world to the "globalization of indifference", to our "inability to cry, to suffer with, to share the pain of others".
This morning the Pope took inspiration from the page of the Gospel that tells the episode of Lazarus and the rich man: the first was welcomed by Abraham into Heaven, the second suffered in the underworld pleading with Abraham to take him "to the other side". But Abraham replied "there is an abyss between us".
The Pope highlighted the short circuit between head and heart, between reason and emotion: we are all informed of the miseries and tragedies of the world, of the poor who are beside us but we are all indifferent, immersed in "ABYSS OF INDIFFERENCE".
In this way we lose our identity, lost in a meaningless egoism, we entrust our evaluations "permeated only in the culture of adjectives: the rich, the powerful, the landowner ...".
In this way we are all nameless, insignificant.
Years ago, with our dear Sister Maria Pia Giudici - who disappeared a few days ago - we were commenting on this page of the Gospel and the considerations were similar to those of Pope Francis today.
"Humanity needs a shock - Sister Maria Pia said to me - to take on a NEW POSTURE in life: able to open our eyes and heart to the poor, the needy, the refugees".
And immediately after he stroked some Syrian refugee children hosted in San Biagio.
I believe that the difficulties of these days must make us reflect on how life can change in a single instant and how indispensable it is to "change posture": helping the most needy, respecting the land that welcomes us, sharing the available resources without useless hoarding that they bring, today, 20% of the inhabitants of the earth to own 80% of resources and goods.
The experience of this historical period - unique for many of us - must lead us to review our life even in small daily actions, to transform LOVE FOR POWER into the POWER OF LOVE
.

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On the occasion of the XXVa Day of Remembrance and Commitment in memory of the innocent victims of the mafias - promoted by Libera and supported, among others, by the Mediterranean Foundation - for the first time in 25 years we are not together to color the squares of Italy.
In these difficult days where it is essential to stay at home, we did not want to let our family embrace the innocent victims of the mafia. And the memory does not stop as the memory of all the innocent victims of the mafias does not stop. March 21 was never an end in itself but always the stage of a commitment that lasts 365 days a year in schools, universities, associations, parishes and wherever citizens live that responsibility for the common good that it is the first antidote to the evil of the mafias and corruption. The innocent victims of the mafias don't just want to be remembered.
They want us to continue their efforts, to fulfill their hopes. Remembering, bringing the lives of people torn from their families back to the heart, realizing, in fact, a right to the name and the memory that has no "civil" but ethical, human, solidarity content: fundamental values ​​of a community capable of building a process of Memory.
For this reason, it was decided to celebrate the day through a social campaign. Through the web and social networks, all the innocent victims of the mafias were remembered, their stories, their names and our closeness to all the family members of the innocent victims of the mafias.
During the XXVa Day of Remembrance and Commitment, Saturday 21 March 2020 starting from 9 am, it was asked to create a flower, choose from the list on the VIVI website the name of an innocent victim of the mafias, take a picture and post it on social media.
So it was.

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As stated by himself at the Angelus on March 22, 2020, in this time of emergency for humanity, the Holy Father Francis invited Catholics from all over the world to join spiritually in prayer with him today on Friday March 27 at 6.00 pm.
The Holy Father's prayer was followed live through the media and ended with the Eucharistic blessing imparted "Urbi et orbi" through the media.
All those who spiritually joined this moment of prayer through the media were granted plenary indulgence according to the conditions laid down in the recent decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary
.

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The Fondazione Mediterraneo shares the document presented to Pope Francis by Bishop Vincenzo Paglia - president of the Pontifical Academy of Life - on the theme "Pandemic and universal fraternity - note on the Covid-19 emergency".
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia gave Pope Francis a copy of the text during a private meeting in the Apostolic Palace March 30. "The pope confided in me two of his concerns: how to help right now, especially the weakest; and for the future, how to come out of this (crisis) strengthened in solidarity," including on a global level, the archbishop said in the written statement.

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"On April 18, 1990 the Neapolitan editorial staff of "La Repubblica" was born.
On 9 May 1990 the "Fondazione Mediterraneo" was born in Naples.
Thirty years together.
An opportunity to recognize the value of independent, free, responsible information. An opportunity to tell a challenge for the Euro-Mediterranean partnership when nobody spoke or dealt with the Mediterranean and few supported the urgency of reaching the "United States of Europe": the Foundation immediately worked to develop a sensitivity for a effective integration between the two shores of Our Sea ".
These are the words of a message sent by President Michele Capasso to Ottavio Ragone, head of the Neapolitan editorial staff of "La Repubblica", also on behalf of the members of the Foundation, the representatives of the participating networks and the coordinators of the offices in the various countries.

"The two anniversaries - reads the message - occur in a difficult moment in world history, characterized by the health emergency due to the" crown virus "pandemic and by a paradox: the" cure "of this" disease "is exactly specular to our very "social disease" itself. We have been "affected" by our own disease of living, which has led us here: we are "united" if we isolate ourselves; it is the amplification of the desert that we created and built.
Thirty years ago the slogan of the Fondazione Mediterraneo was "All together to transform love for power into the power of love". Today it is still powerfully current - concludes President Capasso - and examples such as the Neapolitan editorial staff of "La Repubblica" are fundamental to ensuring "clean journalism" a leading role in the difficult process of reconstruction by assigning the complex generations of hunters to the younger generations of the positive and producers of our future ".

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