♦ June 24, 2025 - Social report and new CDA: John Paul Foundation tells its story in memory of Bishop Giovannetti
SOCIAL BALANCE SHEET AND NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS
THE JOHN PAUL II FOUNDATION TELLS ITS STORY
IN REMEMBRANCE OF MSGR. GIOVANNETTI, ONE YEAR AFTER HIS DEATH
Saturday, June 28, 2025 in Fiesole
The John Paul II Foundation presents its 2024 social budget and also its new board of directors and president.
It does so on a special anniversary: June 28 in Fiesole, one year after the death of Bishop Luciano Giovannetti, founder and first president of the Foundation as well as for many years Bishop and then Bishop Emeritus of the Fiesole diocese itself.
It was he who led the group of 600 faithful from the same diocese who in August 1997, on their way to the Holy Land, were stopped at the gates of Bethlehem by the Israeli army. Faced with the military's no, they decided to celebrate Mass outside the buses. A choice that had such a resonance even in the media that they were granted permission to cross the gate.
From that seed, Msgr. Giovannetti together with other founders, on April 16, 2007, officially gave birth to the John Paul II Foundation, which today is engaged in numerous international cooperation projects, from the Holy Land to Lebanon, from the Middle East to Jordan, but also in Italy with the reception of refugees and those in need.
It has been eighteen years lived on the road together with families, young people, farmers, women, men, children, people with special care needs, religious, volunteers and institutions. A growing reality that on this day in Fiesole will be told through numbers of donations and realized projects, but above all stories, faces and prospects of growth and hope.
The day of June 28 will open at 9:30 a.m. with Holy Mass presided over by the Bishop of Fiesole, His Excellency Bishop Stefano Manetti, in the Church of Santa Maria Primerana in Fiesole: it will be celebrated in memory of Bishop Giovannetti.
Then the friends, collaborators and supporters of the John Paul II Foundation will move to the Franciscan convent for the official presentation of the 2024 Social Report.
The occasion will include the presentation of the members of the Foundation's new Board of Directors , in its majority renewed, elected on June 19, and the new president Damiano Bettoni who, for the next five years, will continue in the work done so far by Andrea Bottinelli, who is leaving office by his own choice, but always remaining at the institution's side.
The afternoon then will be dedicated to employees and collaborators for an internal reflection on the final 2024 budget and 2025 budget results, as well as the operational lines of work for the near future of the John Paul II Foundation, in the wake of the values and commitment traced by founder Giovannetti.
John Paul II Foundation Press Office:
Manuela Plastina - journalist
comunicazione@fondazionegiovannipaolo.org