The conference ”The suicide of the West” in Lecce

In April 2019, a fire broke out inside the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, causing disbelief and dismay throughout the West. That jewel of medieval art has represented for many centuries the synthesis of faith, philosophy and Christian art, elements that laid the foundations of Europe.

That fire which 5 years ago destroyed a good part of the cathedral, still represents today the metaphorical image of the disavowal, denial and derision of the anthropological and metaphysical principles that shaped the West. Twenty years ago Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote: ” (…) there is a self-hatred in the West that is strange and can only be considered as something pathological. The West no longer loves itself”.

The German writer Oswald Splengler already spoke about the crisis of the West in the early years of the twentieth century, with his work The Decline of the West; later the English writer Roger Scruton spoke of the suicide of the West; a few years ago the writer and journalist Federico Rampini published a book entitled Western Suicide.

But what is the West? It cannot be reduced to a geographical place, but identifies a cultural habitat that produced a civilization in which Christianity synthesized and purified Greek philosophy and Roman law. There are therefore three cities that laid the foundations of European civilization: Athens with philosophy, Rome with law, Jerusalem, cradle of Christianity.

By ignoring the Judeo-Christian roots which are its vital essence, the West has given rise, through a slow and centuries-old process led by revolutionary forces, to a post-modern, individualistic, secularised and relativistic society, desperate and hopeless, incapable to secure a future.

Is there hope for the West to continue to live and above all to rise again? To provide an answer to this question, Alleanza Cattolica Puglia organized a meeting entitled: ”The suicide of the West. What hope for the future?”. The meeting will be held in Lecce on Saturday 20 April 2024 at 6.00 pm at the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel – Sala Sybar 1st Floor, Via Cosimo De Giorgi, 62.

Vincenzo Pitotti – Regional Manager of the Alleanza Cattolica will introduce and coordinate. Speakers: Prof. Eugenio Capozzi, Professor of Contemporary History at the “Suor Orsola Benincasa” University of Naples; Dr. Domenico Airoma – Magistrate, National Regent Vicar of Alleanza Cattolica.