THE PROGRAM

THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE INFINITE THAT MAKES US MEN

THIS YEAR'S EDITION WILL INCLUDE WITNESSES, SEMINARS, AND LIVE DIALOGUES WITH PROMINENT FIGURES IN THE WORLD OF CULTURE. HERE IS A TASTE OF WHAT'S TO COME...

“We will document, bear witness, to the fact that it is possible to be true men in any circumstance–men who live the relationship with the infinite, irreducible by any power.” Thus, the Rimini Meeting sums up all of the individual moments that will mark the week, encompassing aspects of everything from work to culture, from politics to science. The 33rd edition of the Meeting will open with an encounter with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on “Youth for Growth.” Young people will be at the center, not only of one of the main exhibits (“The Unforeseeable Moment: Young Protagonists for Development,” organized by the Foundation for Subsidiarity), but also of several encounters, concerning topics from the love for study to the job search. Various prominent players in the world of European politics will take part as well as international figures like Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, President of the UN General Assembly; Tahani Al-Gebali, Vice President of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt; Canadian Minister Jason Kenney; and Silvano Maria Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See at the UN.
The encounter at the heart of this year’s Meeting will center on its title, and it will be presided over by Javier Prades López, Rector of Madrid’s San Dámaso University. In addition, one of the Meeting’s recurrent themes will be religious freedom in the arena of international politics. The speakers on this topic will include French Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; Usama Elabd, President of Al-Azhar University in Cairo; Chrysostomos II, Primate of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus; and Wael Farouq, Vice President of the Cairo Meeting. Other central themes will include humans as religious beings and the positivity of reality, a topic to be addressed by Belgian Cardinal Julien Ries; Shodo Habukawa, Abbot of the Muryoko-in Temple in Japan; Dr. Ignacio Carbajosa Pérez, Professor of Old Testament Studies at San Dámaso; and archaeologist Dr. Giorgio Buccellati, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA.
The philosophical inquiry into the nature of man will be the subject of two seminars (with Andrew Davison, and John Milbank). An investigation into the fields of neuroscience, genetics, and medicine will be undertaken by experts from the scientific world, including American paleoanthropologist Dr. Ian Tatterstall, curator at the American Museum of Natural History, and through an exhibit dedicated to Dr. Jérôme Lejeune, founder of clinical genetics.
There will be a broad spectrum of witnesses: from Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish and neonatologist Elvira Parravicini to astronaut Paolo Nespoli (whose voyages will be documented in one of the exhibits). Literature, the subject of an exhibition dedicated to the image of the world and of man in the works of Dostoevsky, will also be at the center of encounters with several poets (Ángel Guinda, Gianfranco Lauretano, Jean-Pierre Lemaire), conferences about Shakespeare and Pascoli, and live performances of two theatrical masterpieces (Claudel’s The Tidings Brought to Mary and Milosz’s Miguel Mañara) as they celebrate their centennials. The other exhibits at this edition of the Meeting will deal with “utopia and meaning” in the bicentennial of South American independence; the religiosity at the origin of the freedom of the Albanian people; the search for truth in rock music; the history of the construction of the Milan Cathedral; and the relationship with the Mystery in the experience of the Buddhist monks of Mount Koya. And there will be much, much more. The complete (and updated) program can be found at www. meetingrimini.org. For those who cannot come to Rimini, there will be 15 live encounters available on YouTube, as well as prerecorded versions of 60 others in both Italian and English. Each evening at 7:30 pm, the main edition of TgMeeting (Meeting News) will be available (with English and Spanish versions courtesy of Rome Report) on the Meeting website. This year, it will be possible to follow the Meeting in 140-character messages with Twitter. The hashtag will be #meeting. Tracce.it will also have a window on the Meeting, where you will find a collection of the most interesting events and speeches, as well as a daily news roundup and the best of the photos, videos, and stories of each day.