• The 40th edition of the Rimini Meeting has started. Mattarella: "Facing the new with courage"
  • Message of Pope Francis at the Rimini Meeting: "Migrants and marginalized people, not numbers"

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by Tiziana Di Giovannandrea 18 August 2019The 40th annual meeting of Communion and Liberation, the Meeting for friendship between peoples, was opened by a name of excellence like that of the President of the Senate, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati.

The traditional Rimini Meeting has always been a place of debate between various thoughts and where the issues that open up the autumnal political and economic season are addressed. Well Elisabetta Casellati has decided to tackle a fundamental theme for society like that of the family .

"The family is experiencing today a season marked by a veritable epic drama: the demographic winter," Senate President Casellati said at the Meeting of Communion and Liberation. "A perspective that requires a cultural change that strongly underlines the social value of the parenting choice. Because having children is an investment borne by families but with beneficial effects in favor of the whole community. For this - he underlined - the institutions and the policy must support the family with interventions of various kinds that are structural and long term, economic and fiscal measures, certainly, but also of an organizational order, or aimed at making the role of parent and worker concretely compatible, "he pointed out.

Among the applause of the public, the second position of the State then underlined how the new "training paths with the school and family center" cannot ignore the need to guarantee the full implementation of the right to have a fair, effective and meaningful education, of which the effective educational equality is an integral part, in harmony with the constitutional dictate. Because there is no real freedom without the freedom to educate ".

Elisabetta Casellati also addressed the subject of work by highlighting how the third sector is a precious basin for a new push and new ideas for human development: "Free economic and entrepreneurial initiative must be considered as a source of work and Opportunity: Above all, as the true engine of a subsidiary system, hence the need for a new conception of work and business that can be a synthesis between the most solid values ​​of our Christian tradition and the innovative drive of global change processes in place ".

The Cl Meeting takes place in Rimini from 18 to 24 August, where over 800,000 people are expected. The title of the 2019 edition is 'Your name was born from what you fixed', taken from the title of a poem by Karol Wojtyla. From here the message sent by Pope Francis to the participants started. The Pope hopes that the event: "Always be a hospitable place, where people can 'fix faces', experiencing their own unmistakable identity. It is the most beautiful way to celebrate this anniversary". The Pope urged everyone to reflect on migrants who "are not numbers but individuals who flee wars and poverty every day".

Also the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella highlighted how the Meeting is "a precious opportunity to meet, exchange experiences and grow culture". For the Head of State "starting from the person is a path of growth and liberation to which we are constantly referred".

The 2019 Meeting program includes large thematic areas, dedicated to subsidiarity and work, the issues of polis and health, plus a new international area in which experiences of cooperation and development from all over the world will be presented.