Eere’s a scene worth attention. Torrid Rimini, toward the end of the Italian summer, with its sea, beaches, and relaxed atmosphere of seaside resorts. Near the city, a kind of expo center: an infinite series of warehouse-like structures, jam-packed with people. Nothing at all to do with the beach. As a matter of fact, nothing at all to do with business, either. At the center of the main pavilion there is a colossal area for children, where the new generations can freely blow off steam; roller-blading teenagers dart in and out between visitors, and you have to watch carefully where you step so you don’t bump into a baby carriage with a sleeping infant. At the entrance of some auditoriums there are crowds that desire in vain to enter–they should have come earlier. Entrance is completely blocked by the ushers; the organizers let us pass through a service entrance, so we can at least stand on the side of the auditorium. Looking around, I’m dumbstruck: there are six thousand seats, all occupied, people sitting in the corridors or on the floor below the dais, many standing along the walls. And, above all, young people up to date with the latest fashions.

Eternity and modernity
What have they come to? What have they wended their way through the barriers for? Not for a pop star, or a stylish actor, or even for the words of a political leader on the campaign trail. The theme of the event is eternity and modernity. Six thousand people are listening to a university professor, not lacking grit, a bit ecstatic, but without the prophesying or miracle working of a charlatan. He’s simply discussing faith and reason, the drama of those seeking eternity in a world that is deteriorating… “What are all these people doing here?” we ask the hostess (who, like all those who work at the Meeting, chauffeurs included, work for free and pay out of their own pockets for uniform and meals). “And at the height of the beach season at that?” “They’re looking for the meaning of life,” she answers.
To our ears, this response seems a bit immodest: it’s not shameful to talk out loud about sex, but talking about the meaning of life is somehow embarrassing. Here, instead, there’s no post-modern unease. “Excuse me if it seems exaggerated to you,” she says.
This is the Meeting (the name of the annual manifestation of the Christian people–and others–in Rimini, that has already gone through 27 “editions”). Year after year, the number of people grows, and recently the Meeting has had to expand and occupy new spaces. It’s impossible to officially count the visitors who pass through during the week: there are no ticket sales for talks or evening events. To judge by the food and drink sold last year, about 800,000 people came, and this year there will surely be more. Three thousand volunteers build the Meeting and work during the week. The expenses are colossal, but there are no deficits; important forums attract important politicians (tomorrow, for example, Berlusconi is coming), and important politicians attract big business.

Three observations
At this point, in the full spirit of the Meeting, we can allow ourselves three self-righteous observations.
Observation 1: envious and skeptical. We could not imagine anything of the kind in Russia today. Once it seemed that we would be able to change the mentality of society in a short time: the people were fed up with the decaying shambles of Communism, and would begin to search tirelessly for new fundamental values for the Russian reality, while it seemed that the transformation of the economy would engage us for half a century, if not more. Exactly the opposite came about. In the big cities, the economic life is unrecognizably changed, while social life is dead and buried–with the help of power, but not only: the biggest problem is the growing indifference and apathy of the cultured component. Nobody believes in his own strength and in an action of solidarity. The Church fights to have authority over power, but not over society; society, in turn, prefers to fall ever more deeply into lethargy.
Observation 2: optimistic, the exact opposite of what I’ve just said. You don’t always have to keep in mind historical circumstances; sometimes you have to throw them a good challenge.
To reach its current dimensions, the Meeting had to come to life through the enormous risk taken by a small group of people who, with simplicity, believed that it was possible to achieve an impossible plan. Twenty-seven years ago, a movement of lay Catholics, without any help from the ecclesiastical institution (but, it must be said, without any hostility either) undertook a desperate project. The Western world has undergone a process of de-Christianization, and has lost its Christian face. The search for the meaning of life was not in style; the Meeting went against the flow of this evident tendency, against common sense and cold calculation. Neither in a sectarian way, nor heroically, nor flint-faced, but tranquilly and open faced, they said, “Let’s try to talk a bit about things that have nothing to do with the hypothesis that God doesn’t exist. Let’s try to start from the hypothesis that God exists, and we’ll look at life around us, in all its spheres (including the political one) from another point of view.” It seemed like this was just what people were waiting for–believers, non-believers, everyone. The Meeting is necessary for the political system, if only just because all the discussion about integration of immigrants has to face up to a simple question: what are they integrating into, if the Europeans don’t know what they believe in? The Vatican is happy, too. Conclusion: if they have succeeded, why can’t we?
Observation 3: All the clichés about a conventional West, in contact with objective reality, shatter into smithereens. It is thought that the Europeans gave up unconditionally long ago, at the mercy of the Islamic victor, that the thirst for well-being and vague and unfocused ideas on human rights have definitively beaten down Christian principles, that the naive aspirations for a mysterious end of life have become the patrimony of elderly, marginalized, and decrepit losers. This is true in part, if we judge superficially and keep to the sociological laws of big numbers (the one with the most numbers wins). But if, from the heights of abstraction, we descend to the earth of common mortals to consider these facts attentively, and above all in their dynamic, it seems that things aren’t really so bad. Or at least, not all things are so bad. It means that there is a big chance that life can take another direction–not everywhere, not for everyone, but for many.

Politically correct
For that matter, Senator Rocco Buttiglione spoke at the Meeting with great success. Member of the European Parliament, he was about to become a European Commissioner, but during the hearings, he answered a left-wing representative’s question by saying that as a politician, he supports equality for everyone before the law, regardless of their ideological belonging or sexual habits, but as a Catholic he holds that sodomy is a sin. Understand, he was subjected to grave and unconditional filibustering. We asked him later what had led him to such a provocative rejection of political correctness. Buttiglione smiled, “I’m a normal person, and I would have liked to have become a European Commissioner, and I was ready to make compromises. However, the representatives kept after me, and pushed for a direct response. The words of a preacher came to mind; he had been offered his life in return for rejecting Christ: ‘I prefer that they cut my head off my body, rather than God from my heart.’ Well, after all, I just preferred that they cut my posterior from the Parliament seat, rather than the faith from my heart.”
Does this mean, then, that such a thing is possible? The price, if you think about it, isn’t really so high.