From left, the mayor of Bari Vito Leccese, the councilor for culture Paola Romano and the archbishop of Bari Monsignor Giuseppe Satriano at the inauguration of the new San Paolo bookshop..
The new San Paolo bookshop was inaugurated on Saturday 8 November in Bari, which after 45 years left its historic location in Piazza Luigi di Savoia to move to the central Via Nicolai, next to the State University. At the ribbon cutting ceremony were the archbishop of Bari, Monsignor Giuseppe Satriano, the mayor Vito Leccese and the councilor for culture Paola Romano, as well as the administrator of Diffusione San Paolo, don Antonio Rizzolo, Sandra Gotelli (director of the San Paolo bookshops in Italy) and the general director of the apostolate, don Stefano Stimamiglio. The San Paolo bookshop chain, born from the intuition of Blessed Giacomo Alberione, founder of the Paulines, has 14 locations in Italy, which have always been a point of reference for texts of a religious nature, fiction, non-fiction, philosophy and objects.
Monsignor Satriano, recalling his time as a seminarian in Brindisi when he went to the bookshop in Bari to buy study books, underlined the courage to continue investing in Catholic culture in these times in which the general propensity of Italians to read is declining. Mayor Leccese underlined, however, the strategic importance of a new bookshop located right in a drug dealing area. A plague which, even with the help of the University which will open its entrance doors right on the offending square, we are trying to fight together. «We left the headquarters in Piazza Luigi di Savoia to get closer to the places of everyday life, but also to get closer to different subjects», explained Pino Scardavilli, director of the bookshop. «The bookshop is not just a point of sale, but also a place of listening, dialogue and friendship for the Christian community and for citizens», he concluded.
