Trieste (Italy). From 3 to 7 July 2024, a delegation of leaders, formators, and students of the Italian Salesian Women’s Works Center – Professional Formation (Ciofs Fp ETS) actively participated in the 50th Social Week of Catholics in Italy, the appointment of the Italian Episcopal Conference, held in Trieste on the theme: “At the heart of democracy. Participating between history and future”.
To host the event, the “beautiful and welcoming city of Trieste”, as it was defined by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Metropolitan Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, “a borderland, marked by intercultural, ecumenical, and interreligious dialogue, by so much ancient and recent wisdom; a door that unites east and west, north and south, but also a land marked by deep wounds not completely healed… a land that speaks to us of the opportunity and beauty of living together.”
“At the heart of democracy are the people, the relationships, and the communities to which they give life, the civil, social, economic expressions that are the result of their freedom, their aspirations, their humanity.” These are the words spoken in the afternoon of 3 July, in the speech at the opening ceremony of the Week, by the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, who also highlighted that, “Democracy is never conquered forever. (…) It presupposes the effort to develop a vision of the common good in which individual freedom and social openness, the good of freedom and the good of shared humanity are wisely intertwined because they are inseparable from each other.”
This is what the more than one thousand delegates from Dioceses, associations, movements, organizations tried to implement by meeting and sharing in plenary assemblies and workshops, in the round tables of the “plazas of democracy” in the city center, and among the stands of the “Village of good practices”, in which the different realities attending, presented their good practices in a perspective of impulse and development of participation.
The Ciofs Fp ETS participated with a group of Delegates, involved in an important process of reflection and discussion on different aspects of democratic participation, to which they contributed on education, formation, and work. Interesting and dense reports inspired the group work focused on identifying the challenges of the present time and on the proposal of solutions, initiatives, laws that can respond to the questions and needs present in Italian society today, with a particular gaze on the most fragile and vulnerable people.
The stand at the “Village of good practices” presented the experiences of the different formative companies activated in recent years in different regions of Italy. Actively supported by colleagues and students of the Ciofs Fp Friuli Venezia Giulia, who guaranteed a constant presence for all the days, alternated formators and students from Emilia Romagna, Veneto, Piedmont, Puglia, who with their enthusiasm animated the opening days of the stands.
The Social Week was also animated by moments of debate in various squares of Trieste on topical issues related to social and political participation, the role of education and formation in promoting participation, the impact of artificial intelligence on society and politics.
The Ciofs Fp ETS Foundation has also been involved in a specific event on Professional Formation on the theme, “School: educating to participation” introduced by Sister Angela Elicio, Daughter of Mary Help of Christians, member of the Scientific Committee and organizer of the Social Weeks as an expert in educative- formative professional planning in which the delegates of the Ciofs Fp presented their good practices and discussed with other national realities about possible collaborations and proposals to improve action in the territory.
It has been a rich experience of learning, of awareness of the realities of all Italy, with group work organized in an innovative and participatory way, taking advantage of the opportunities of the new technologies.
The heart, chosen as the symbol of the 50th edition of the Weeks, is the image “that summarizes everything”, the focus of the discourse given by Pope Francis on 7 July at the closing of the event at the “Generali Convention Center” in Trieste, before the Eucharistic Celebration in Piazza Unità d’Italia.
In proposing two reflections to nourish the future path, he affirmed: “A democracy with a healed heart continues to cultivate dreams for the future, puts into play, calls for personal and community involvement. Dream the future. Do not be afraid. Let us not be fooled by easy solutions. Let us be passionate about the common good. We have a duty to not manipulate the word democracy or to distort it with titles empty of content, capable of justifying any action. Democracy is not an empty box, but is linked to the values of the person, of fraternity, and also of integral ecology.”
The Holy Father concluded his discourse by recalling “the role of the Church: to involve in hope, because without it, the present is administered but the future is not built. Without hope, we would be administrators, acrobats of the present and not prophets and builders of the future.” And he wished everyone to “be artisans of democracy and contagious witnesses of participation”.
