With the reading of Pope Francis’ message, Bernard Scholz opened the 2021 edition of the Meeting of Friendship among Peoples, the first completely in attendance. Following the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, connected by video from the Quirinale and welcomed by a warm applause from the audience, gave the opening speech of the Rimini week: “With the virus we have found ourselves more fragile than we thought. We understood more clearly that we need the support of others. We have experienced pain, fear, loneliness. But in the community we found precious resources, decisive to ensure that our hopes, our aspirations were not eradicated and could still find confirmation and development, “said the Head of State.
«The pandemic has shown us how much responsibility is needed. In the work of all doctors and health personnel. In the work of those who carry out social tasks. In the commitment of those who work in the productive, economic fabric. In the action of governments and international organizations. But also in the behavior of each of us. Responsibility begins with us. Getting vaccinated – among many examples – is a duty not in obedience to an abstract principle, but because it arises from the concrete reality that demonstrates that the vaccine is the most effective tool we have to defend ourselves and to protect the weakest and most exposed to serious dangers. An act of love towards them, as Pope Francis said a few days ago – added Mattarella -. Having the courage to say I recalls the need to turn to others, to one or many you. It is a question, even for believers, of the key to the relationship with God. The self needs to feel its own responsibility and to recognize others in order to compose the we of the community. The self aware of its responsibility excludes the selfishness that leads to conflict with others; who deludes himself of his own strength and in reality risks falling into powerlessness, ultimately also rejecting oneself. The future can only be built together. It is the ego that recognizes the value of diversity, of finding oneself and finding oneself together; the ego that desires company – to use a term dear to you – to become a builder of experiences, of meaning, of life. The reference to the self highlights the task – or, to express it more intensely, the mission – towards the many you we meet. For all this, in order to choose one’s destiny, it is necessary that the person gain full awareness of his own value, of his original and unrepeatable being. So as to understand that you have to get involved. The courage to say I is indispensable to give concreteness, human reality, to principles that otherwise would remain inert, or worse would be betrayed by renunciation or hiding. Therefore, we need the courage of responsibility ».
«History constantly teaches us how many threats there are to freedomà and how many sacrifices are required to conquer it – says Mattarella -. It also shows us that it is an indivisible good between women and men of every continent. We realize how much the lack of freedom or the loss of it in other places in the world affects our conscience and affects the common coexistence in the increasingly integrated world community. The courage of the self sets us free. We speak of authentic freedom, capable of planting solid roots, only if it cultivates the vocation to encounter and respect and which is inscribed in the soul of every person. Freedom, to be such, must measure itself against the freedom of others. Not because the freedom of others represents a limit to ours but because – on the contrary – the freedom of each one increases and consolidates itself with that of the others, it is realized together with that of the others. Freedom grows – underlines Mattarella – in the personal conscience of each and lives together with that of those close to us, in the construction of a common conscience. The responsible and supportive self, the self that recognizes the common destiny of human beings, becomes the cornerstone of coexistence. And, in civil society, of democratic society ».