Author: Maria Arias

John Paul II Foundation / Articles posted by Maria Arias (Page 4)

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Magazine, News
April 15, 2024

Florence experienced three days of youthful energy with the Francis Live 2024 event, which attracted as many as 1,700 participants. The John Paul II Foundation took part in the event with a workshop on Saturday, April 13 at the Sala degli Otto in Palazzo Vecchio. With the theme "A Sustainable Dream," President Andrea Bottinelli along with Renato Burigana, Alessandro Martini and Maurizio Artale led a training session, offering the young people in attendance a unique opportunity to learn and share ideas....

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Magazine, News
April 11, 2024

The Mediterranean Youth Council will inaugurate its official headquarters at the Bishop's Seminary in Fiesole on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, at 4 p.m. H.E. Msgr. Giuseppe Baturi, secretary of the Italian Bishops' Conference, and Ambassador Pasquale Ferrara, Director General for Political Affairs and Security of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, will speak at the inauguration. In addition, five young people will be present to represent the delegates. The office will serve as the official headquarters for the meetings of the "Mare Nostrum" network, composed of the four entities involved in the project: the Giovanni Paolo II Foundation, the Giorgio La Pira Foundation, the "Giorgio La Pira" International Center and the "Giorgio La Pira" Youth Work. The venue will be the place where the 40 delegates from more than 18 countries will meet once a year to discuss issues such as peace, interreligious dialogue and the role of youth in the political, economic and social reality of the Mediterranean. You can...

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Magazine, News
April 8, 2024

On April 4, the Mediterranean Youth Council, which came into being as a result of the 2022 Mediterranean Bishops' meetings in Florence, met in Brussels with European institutions to discuss issues concerning the future of youth, peace among peoples and interreligious dialogue. The meeting was attended by Dr. Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, Msgr. Mariano Crociata, President of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union, MEP Beatrice Covassi, Patrizia Giunti, President of the La Pira Foundation, 4 Youth of the Board, and Tina Hamalaya, operational secretary of the John Paul II Foundation's Mediterranean Youth Council. ...

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Magazine, News
March 28, 2024

Dear Friends of the Foundation, These days we write on our social media, on our webpage, "a safe place" for the children of Bethlehem. A few words are enough to unite us in a dilated embrace to reach out to that land and place the origin and inspiration of the Founders of the Foundation. "Place-Safe Place-Children-Bethlehem" are the cardinal points that reconfigure the space where it is still possible to experience hope mortally wounded by the terrible consequences of violence, savagery, absence of humanity in men that no century has limited (the Israel-Hamas war). The place: our Bethlehem location. A large garden area in the immediate vicinity of the historic center where the architecture of buildings bordering on beauty in form and color impose themselves and already host -for extracurricular activities- the children of Bethlehemite families. Safe: because it ensures. It has a protective function whereby one feels safe and regains a sense of tranquility, helps to leave behind the...

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Magazine, News, Uncategorized
March 21, 2024

Rome, March 18-20, 2024 ITALIAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE National Office for Social Communications Permanent Council Final Communiqué- excerpt Mediterranean Youth Council. An update was presented about the activities of the Mediterranean Youth Council, a sign-work born following the Meeting of Mediterranean Bishops and Mayors (Florence, Feb. 23-27, 2022). Strongly desired and supported by the CEI, the project aims to care for the spiritual dimension, strengthen pastoral action in the face of today's challenges and build fraternal relationships. As part of the Council's work, a meeting of the Executive, accompanied by Msgr. Baturi, with Msgr. Mariano Crociata, President of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union, and with Dr. Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, is scheduled for April 3 and 4 in Brussels. Then, on April 16, the Council's headquarters will be inaugurated in Fiesole. Also under construction is the web portal of the Mediterranean Youth Council, where they will be...

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Magazine, News
March 19, 2024

We have to say God bless Don Giovanni Sassolini, one of the inspirers and founders of our Foundation. As we extend our embrace to the family members, we extend a grateful and thankful thought to Don Giovanni for his service and for the good he wished the Holy Land and the John Paul II Foundation....

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Conversations, Magazine
March 6, 2024

Chains on wrists, chains on feet, the chain as a leash. Chains have always represented the denial of the freedom we all cherish. Nelson Mandela wrote, "the chains imposed on one of us weigh on the shoulders of all." So in these days we have felt as a community, watching the images of Ilaria Salis being led and held in chains at the first hearing of the trial in which she is a defendant in Budapest, the weight of those chains, as an injustice, not because she is innocent of the crimes charged against her, but because it is not human to humiliate and treat a person that way. To us Italians those chains weigh even heavier because our feeling about human dignity is perhaps different today from that of the Hungarian people, because of our conception of the rule of law, because of our history, because of the achievements we have made, because of a Constitution that is based on the recognition and...

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Press Releases, Magazine
March 1, 2024

The "Service Center" desk, located at the offices of the John Paul II Foundation on Viale Roma 9, opens in the town of Pratovecchio-Stia on Tuesday, March 5. The result of a collaboration between the John Paul II Foundation, Caritas diocesana of Fiesole, Patronato ACLI of Arezzo and ACLI Service of Arezzo, this new counter will provide targeted services for migrants (residence permit, family reunification, citizenship and legal assistance), INPS social security practices (pension, disability, unemployment), and tax assistance (730 models, ISEE). The desk is part of a larger project, financed by the Bank of Italy, that provides support to vulnerable groups in the ways that the John Paul II Foundation has already successfully experimented in the Valdarno Aretino area. Opening hours will be dedicated to migrant services on the 1st and 3rd Monday of the month from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; the patronage office will be open every Thursday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; while the CAF will be available...

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Magazine, News
February 23, 2024

"The human capacity to carve out a niche for oneself, to secrete a shell, to erect around oneself a tenuous barrier of defense even in seemingly desperate circumstances is astounding and deserves a more in-depth study" (P. Levi, "If This is a Man. The Truce," 1958). The amazement at how human beings manage, in spite of everything, to survive in extreme contexts such as those of a war and somehow even "accept" its dramatic consequences becomes even greater when the object of our reflection is children. We wonder where they derive the strength to go through such an experience without permanently collapsing; yet, except in limited cases, children who have gone through the atrocities of war do not go "out of their minds." Most of the time, these children even seem to us better, more helpful, more mature than they are in "normal" situations. This incredible ability to adapt can lead us adults to underestimate the...

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Magazine, News
February 23, 2024

Daydreaming is the faculty of the mind that spontaneously recreates experiences and experiences, immersing itself in another reality. Children possess a vivid imagination; they invent characters and stories by experiencing them as if they were real. As they grow up they understand the difference between reality and the imaginary-a friendly world, a free, open land, harmony with nature. Sometimes reality seems threatening, intrusive, difficult to understand and deal with. But when reality does NOT seem but IS, what tools come to the rescue of the imagination, the dream? Where to wander with the mind, retreat to an imaginary world and find refuge from the fears, loneliness, dangers that are about to extinguish any relationship with what was familiar to us until yesterday? This brief reflection accompanied us on the difficult, uncertain, challenging path of helping the children of Bethlehem today in danger and tomorrow likely victims of the reality that is erasing all imaginary fantasy and smiles or made orphans by violence...

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