They were four friends at the bar, or to be precise at the pizzeria. No intentions, no direction, no analysis. Just a happy intuition born from friendship, in the “capital” of summer tourism in Romagna. It was the year 1979, in the middle of summer in Rimini. «That’s August 5th we had organized a classical guitar concert in a small square in Borgo San Giuliano in Rimini and after removing the stage, collecting the chairs and then everything organized we went to a nearby pizzeria and there we questioned our cultural work hard, we tried to judge. ”, the reconstruction of Marco Ferrini, who was then the president of the cultural center “Il portico del vasaio”, a direct protagonist of the first editions of the Meeting. Along with Ferrini was Alver Metalli, a remarkable journalist – a long-time friend of Pope Bergoglio – with origins from Romagna and strong roots in Latin America; Paolo Biondi, a well-respected journalist at Saturday and then of Reuters; Creative Geo Lisi then Councilor for Culture in Rimini then MEP; Antonio Smurro, a lawyer and then president of the Meeting until 1993 (and the husband of Emilia Guarnieri, who himself was president for a long time recently), Paolo Gessaroli and Mimmo Pirozzi.
The community of Rimini, led by a high priest, Don Giancarlo Ugolini, has been part of the history of CL, since its inception. It must also be related to the fact that Rimini, with its accommodation facility, gave a possibility that no other city has. But at the bottom of the Meeting is above all a simple intuition. Which, as soon as it reached the ears of Don Giussani, who received enthusiastic support, he saw it as a wonderful example of the “adult responsibility” that he had been asking the people of the movement for some time, ‘provided, however, that the mode of operation reflected the friendship that lived together and not the sharing of accurate analysis.
This is the Rimini Meeting, and this is the key to its incredible longevity. The openness of some friends, and of an increasingly larger circle, to the idea of ”positivity of reality” is essential, to use this year’s key word, in the teachings of priest Desio.
Another interpretation that Giussani has always offered holidays as a place of freedom, the time in which one can, in individual or friendly creativity, bring out what really takes care about, outside the constraints of work dependency. or other type. Over the years, this has led to one of the most socially important aspects of Catholic commitment in Italy, the amazing and passionate freedom with which boys and those who are no longer boys, 3,000 in recent years with others who do not often find a place, who offer a week of their time, unsolicited by anyone, voluntarily. On the contrary. When there were times of crisis at the Meeting, largely linked to the political consequences caused by meetings and political positions built within it, the volunteers, from the “base”, took care that they ‘holding the bar, through experience, at a “must” that stands. the influence of time and ideological divisions, sharing with joy the “freedom” that only Christ can offer to man.
For this reason, when we describe it as a “CL Meeting” we are saying something real and unreal. True because it is knowledge born from friendship in that field. That is not true because Giussani, who always maintained that he never wanted to find anything, much less founded the Meeting. Which instead is the result of a free friendship, which opened up to the world and was able to last 45 years.
2024-08-20 12:30:55
#miracle #friendship #lasted #years
