Less than a year is left for the meeting of the Episcopal Conferences facing the Mediterranean scheduled in Bari in February 2020, but the preparatory process has begun. In the Pontifical Regional Seminary of Molfetta from 7 to 11 April next the "Viamare" culture week will take place in view of the solemn appointment of 2020. There is a lot of solidarity and sustainability in this event with a protagonist very dear to Italians: the Mediterranean . The great sea that – as the launch of the initiative says – each of us has in our eyes. That huge expanse of water where culture was born with "horizons considered infinite, colors that leave a trace, perfumes that always accompany you and stick on you".
Both secular and Catholic is the message launched by the seaside town, inspired by the document on human fraternity by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayye. Culture Week begins on Sunday 7 April with a concert-show by Oona Rea. The next day Andrea Riccardi, founder of the community of Sant'Egidio, will speak about the complex geopolitical situation of the Mediterranean. He will do it in the name of Christian justice and with the many years of experience of help and solidarity carried out by his community behind him. The debate will also give space to Iraq, a country symbol of redemption from religious and cultural travails. The Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, will speak about it in Molfetta. Another high-profile meeting with the film critic Giuseppe Grossi, who will accompany the viewing of the film "Babel", by director A. Inarritu. Immediately after a discussion with Professor Wael Farouq, professor of Arabic language and culture at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. In the name of a single God, Farouq will dwell on the beauty of speaking with two different alphabets, the Islamic and the Christian. Ultimately five appointments, metaphors of life preservers to be able to stay afloat in an unprecedented complexity.
The Mediterranean is the place of human and cultural sustainability, an expanse navigated and navigable by peoples who have risen to dignity and by peoples in search of a social dimension that the political follies of these times try to deny in every way. How much time will they still have to counter these cultural and religious contaminations? In the name of which God will they be able to arrest the aspirations of thousands of people to live in a context different from the one in which they were born? Faith - says Pope Francis - leads to seeing in the other a brother to be supported and loved. A cultural battle by intellectuals, philosophers, men of religion, artists, media operators, to rediscover the values of peace, justice and human brotherhood. From the grandeur of the Mediterranean and the mixture of ideas, then, one easily borders on one of the most suggestive passages of the document on brotherhood. At that point where it is explained that to safeguard the balance of the planet and continue to cultivate hope, the West could find remedies for some of its diseases caused by the domination of materialism in the civilization of the East. In turn, the East could find in the civilization of the West so many elements that can help it save itself from weakness, division, conflict and scientific, technical and cultural decline. Culture, commitment and knowledge are the foundations on which Puglia is building the dialogue.
