close-up
history and the “I”

the road to certainty
A seven-day event with exhibitions, talks, visiting celebrities, and 4,000 volunteers brought many surprises. Emilia Guarnieri, President of the Rimini Meeting, tells us what she saw and why she is discovering now the meaning of a phrase she heard many years ago.

by Davide Perillo

“Man cannot live without a certainty about his own destiny.” Under the auspices of these words of Benedict XVI, the 32nd edition of the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples took place in Rimini August 21-27. It was a week of encounters, exhibits, and shows, with this year’s theme: “And Existence Becomes an Immense Certainty.”
But what happened at this event, which is so unique in the world? Let’s start with the numbers: 113 encounters, 10 exhibits, 26 shows, almost 800,000 visitors from 38 countries... And everything is run by volunteers (4,000 this year), most of whom are young people, who, aside from donating their time and energy to the Meeting, pay out-of-pocket for room and board in Rimini.
The numbers, however, are not enough. It’s necessary to look at what happened in those days, to see how this event and the Christian experience from which it is born are a phenomenon that leave a mark on history. Some examples? The visit by the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. The meetings about the Middle East. The round tables with important personages like jurists Joseph Weiler and Robert George, Templeton Prize winner John Polkinghorne, and welfare experts Lester Salamon and Phillip Blond. The participation of John Elkann, President of Fiat, who came to the Meeting because the stories of Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat-Chrysler and an invitee in 2010 (and surprise visitor this year), piqued his curiosity. The concert by the Chieftains. The witness of entrepreneurs like Clara Gaymard, President and CEO of GE France. The friendship with Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, Anglican, and Buddhist visitors, struck by the fact that “dialogue is possible here.” And the exhibits: the encounter of the disciples with Jesus, certainty in scientific research, the figure of Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman, and the Russian writer Boris Pasternak...
This gathering has come a long way from that pizza among friends at the end of the 1970s, where a desire emerged to delve into their Christian experience, meeting that which was good and beautiful in the culture of the time–and so the Meeting was born. And it has become that which is described in the issue of Tracesthat you are holding.

The 2011 Meeting had many highlights: the President of Italy, certainly; the Pope’s message; the dialogues about the Middle East; the exhibitions; the industry moguls; the five-minute applause after the lecture by philosopher Costantino Esposito on the theme, “And Existence Becomes an Immense Certainty.” But if you ask Emilia Guarnieri, the President and soul of the Rimini Meeting, what struck her most in the 32nd edition, her answer is clear: “Fr. Giussani’s charism. All these facts made me realize more that it’s possible for everyone to encounter it if we ourselves live it.”

When did you come to realize it so clearly?
In the relationship with our Egyptian friends. Wael Farouq is a walking miracle. Nothing can explain someone who says with growing certainty that through his friendship with us he lives his experience of Islam more deeply. Or, better, you can explain it only because he has encountered the same thing as we are living, and it has changed his heart. But I am thinking of others, too: of Abdel Fattah, of the Muslim Brotherhood who, before presenting his Arabic translation of The Risk of Education, asked us to pray for him. The power of the encounter they have had is evident. Then, I am always struck when the invited guests, whether VIPs or ordinary people, say that the Meeting is “something exceptional.” I ask myself, “What do they see?”

What do they see?
Of course, the organization, the beauty, the hospitality, the 4,000 volunteer workers moved by an ideal. All these are decisive factors, because they are fruit of the experience we are living. But at the root of all this there is something more. This year, a phrase of Fr. Giussani from many years ago came back to me as never before: “My friends cannot fail to recognize in the Meeting the fact that it is favored by God.” It doesn’t mean only that the Mystery helps us and makes sure that all goes well. This is clear, for if it weren’t His work, it would be impossible. But now I know there is something more. At the Meeting, the experience of the charism–the Christ event–happens over and over again. And it happens with all its ecumenical power, with all its capacity to encounter everyone.

So, at the end of this week, are you more certain than before?
Yes, because I have seen these things happening, above all, in me. The joy I live is an experience of mine, and it makes me more certain.

Why? What is it that enables you and those who organize the Meeting with you to be so happy?
Following. I use the same method I used at the age of 15 in GS [the CL high school youth group]. If I have gotten this far and have not lost the faith, it means the method works. But, joking apart, we took up what Fr. Julián Carrón said about the Meeting during the year, and made it a working hypothesis: “It is an occasion for giving the reasons for our experience, for meeting everyone, for deepening the proposal, for verifying its historic impact.” In all the choices, we sought to use these four factors as criteria.

And what about the “historic impact” of our experience, of which Fr. Carrón spoke? What made you understand this better at Rimini?
President Napolitano’s visit was astounding. The President of the Republic coming to the Meeting! He went to visit the exhibition celebrating 150 years of Italian unification, which presents our judgment. He appreciated it very much. Then he gave an address with important contents: the culture of truth, reality, subsidiarity. He said that we are a resource for the country; he invited us to follow our longing for certainty. I don’t use the term “recognition,” it seems out of place. We could give many interpretations of what he said, more or less political, but the fact remains: undoubtedly it has historic importance. Then there were the encounters with the Muslims, and with the Jews. Take the debate between Joseph Weiler, a Jewish jurist, and Ignacio Carbajosa, a Catholic theologian, on the book of Deuteronomy. They had a face-to-face discussion. They reached a point where the irreducibility of the two positions emerged clearly; it could not have been otherwise. Yet they found themselves more united and closer friends than before. Does a meeting of this kind solve the problems between Judaism and Catholicism? Clearly not. But it is a fact–something that leaves a mark. And this happened at the Meeting, not elsewhere. This is what I mean by historic impact.

Have you ever thought over these years that the outcome depends on more intelligent strategies, more intelligent relationships, or political acumen?
Sincerely, no. Every time I sensed this kind of temptation in the Meeting, I felt uneasy. And our history was closely guided by Fr. Giussani physically: he hardly ever came to the Meeting, but he would come to eat at our home during the year. His was a great companionship in everything, flanked, after a while, by that of Giancarlo Cesana, and by that of Fr. Carrón and the center of the Movement. Whenever we wanted it, we always had a companion to look to. At the beginning, Fr. Giussani told us something that I didn’t understand at the time: “Do what you think best, but do it in unity with the center.” Now I understand that phrase more and more.

On this point of understanding things little by little, it’s not that this year things happened that never happened before. Ecumenism, for example, has always been given importance. Last year, we dedicated the cover to a photo of the Orthodox Patriarch Filaret meeting Cardinal Erdö. Yet now our awareness is greater; we are more conscious. Why?
Because our recognition of Christ is nearer. One of the volunteers told us that he came to work in the press office, but he ended up working in the parking lot–a week far away from the exhibitions and the speeches. Do you know what he said? “I was forced to ask myself for Whom I do it.” The point is that that “Whom” is nearer in our experience.

What were some other crucial moments during the week?
The Pope’s message: the Holy Father took up the theme, offering a point of on-going comparison in our work throughout the week. The keynote addresses: Costantino Esposito, whose lesson helped us to deepen our understanding of the theme; Fabrice Hadjadj, another example of someone who met Fr. Giussani’s charism and sees things in a new light; then the presentation of the exhibition on the Apostles in Capernaum: the historicity of Christ, as regards the question of certainty, is a fundamental point–something, as Kierkegaard said, before which you have to decide. Again, I was surprised by John Elkann (Agnelli family heir and President of Fiat-Chrysler), who was simple and curious–and it’s significant that he came because Sergio Marchionne (CEO of Fiat-Chrysler), after being at the Meeting last year, told him, “You must go and see.” But the list is long. I would include the last event, the presentation of the book of Giussani’s meetings with the university “Équipes” [CL university leaders’ meetings]. Then, the theatrical representation of Chesterton’s book, The White Horse, offered a cultural position: the courage to leave safety behind in order to search for what your heart longs for is a remarkable challenge. But this year I think I have seen something new and important in the exhibitions and the shows.
What?
A more powerful awareness, both in those who went to see them and in those who were working as volunteer guides. There was a greater awareness of the cultural value of the Meeting. There were years in which there was a kind of gap between experience and content. The “experience” was what you lived at the Meeting, being with the others, meeting them, going to the exhibitions together, eating, and so on. And then there were the cultural contents, addressed, above all, to the “others,” to the newspapers, and other spectators. This year, there was no division.

How do you explain that?
On one hand, the program was more precisely in tune with this year’s work, but awareness has grown, too. It is the challenge that Fr. Carrón threw out some time ago. The Meeting’s title is a challenge for us, above all. Either we live it as a provocation…

And what about the theme next year? “Man’s Nature is Relationship with the Infinite” is a quotation from the first premise of The Religious Sense. Why will it be a step forward from this year’s journey?
I think the point is the word “nature.” It means that man’s structure is relationship with the infinite. It is something more even than the fact that he desires the infinite, as we said in 2010. Not only does he search for the infinite in the things he does, but his very being is relationship with the infinite. It is a step to be discovered. But we have a whole year to begin the discovery.