Trust as a precious good for relationships. It is the theme at the center of the second edition of the Spirituality festival Soul (here the detailed and complete program), The appointment promoted by Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and Archdiocese of Milan, with the patronage of Municipality of Milanwhich returns from 19 to 23 March in some significant places in the city. Over 60 appointments and 90 exceptional protagonists are scheduled. To open the Festival on Wednesday 19 March at 6 pm David Grossman in the Aula Magna of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and at 9.30 pm Luigi Lo Cascio at the Franco Parenti Theater. Closure Sunday 23 March at 9.00 pm at the Basilica of San Nazaro in Brolo with a recital of Simonetta Solder and Valeria Cantoni Mamiani by the autobiography of Santa Teresa of Lisieux.
The program was presented on Friday morning at Palazzo Marino in the presence of the Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Milan Tommaso Sacchi, Archbishop Mario Delpini and the rector of Cattolica, Elena Beccalli.
“This festival,” said Delpini during the presentation press conference, “wants to be a kind of pause for reflection, of time appropriate to facilitate reflection. On what? The question I ask myself is often what a city does a city? There are studies, whole libraries. I say that the city is not a military camp that is a very united and organized place according to an enemy to fight. In the camp, different people compact because there is a common enemy but the city has no enemies to fight. The city, “he continued,« nOn is not even a hive, an orderly and efficient and well organized world. The purpose of the hive is to produce honey at the cost of the life of those who work, therefore efficiency and organization for production. Even if a lot in Milan is produced and we must be efficient, Milan is not a hive. It is not even a market even if you sell and buy a lot because, if so, it would conceive public space only as aimed at your interest and earnings ».
Delpini asked themselves, then, what is Milan? “With this festival we mean that the city has profound reasons to feel a community“, He underlined,” fear, efficiency and interest are elements that do not give any identity in Milan. Soul expresses this persuasion. Milan is a city because it is animated by trust. It seems important to me to claim that there is a profound root for our living together that saves us from the epidemic of solitude that afflicts our city. A festival like Soul shows that we ask for help from all disciplines, from literature to science, from economy to philosophy, from visual arts to theater. A complexity and polyphony of languages that have this intention that men and women can live in their interiority. That there are people who have good reasons to live with others and feel part of a common story. What are the profound reasons found in the soul of each to feel part of a city? The first is that the singularity is interpreted as a vocation to the common good. How to interpret the relationship with others. The festival says it must be animated by a spirit of trust and esteem. This is not so evident in ordinary life but if we go deeply we find good reasons to make this agglomeration of people a city ».
The rector of Cattolica explained that “for the university collaboration to the Festival is a reason to rediscover what a university is and also rediscover our roots in the city”. The Festival continued Beccalli, “At least two perspectives contributes to the city. The first is to highlight, also in light of the first edition of Soul last year, which in Milan is a thirst for spirituality and try to give some response. The theme of the Festival is important because it represents a key to reading for our time. There is less and less trust, in relationships, in public and social life, in institutions, and this brings us back to a fundamental question: how to recreate it? It is not a question of doing more but of doing the right thing. The commitment that a university institution like ours has is to feed this good so scarce and so precious. A path that we cannot do alone. The idea and to move from me to a dimension that gives value to us Soul also has the task of creating a network of alliances in the city and for the city ».
