TRENT. It will be entrusted to Trentino Don Ivan Maffeis the twenty-first edition of Lectio degasperiana scheduled for Sunday 18 August, at 5pm, at the multifunctional center of Pieve Tesino and titled “Degasperian Prophecy. The desert of democracy and the rebirth of politics”.
Twenty years after its first edition, the Trentina Alcide De Gasperi Foundationfor its most representative event, therefore calls theArchbishop of Perugia-Città della Pieve to reflect on the prophetic character of the figure of Alcide De Gasperi.
Born in Pinzolo in 1963, Ivan Maffeis after obtaining a doctorate in Social Communications Sciences, he directed the diocesan weekly “Vita Trentina” from 2000 to 2009 and was parish priest in Ravina and Romagnanopositions left in 2010 to lend service in the Italian Episcopal Conference where he was given various roles, up to that of Undersecretary from 2015 to 2020. Upon returning to the diocese, he was parish priest in Roveretobefore Pope francesco appointed him Archbishop of Perugia – Città della Pieve in 2022.
“It will be one Lectio degasperiana with original implications in which historical analysis meets the suggestions of biblical wisdom in outlining the almost prophetic character of De Gasperi’s experience” explain the organizers, who specify: “The figure of De Gasperi does not cease to be from stimulus for our time: 70 years after his death his thoughts and his work as a statesman belong to a special moment in history of the twentieth century”.
What is underlined is how the choices of the decade of De Gasperi’s government have faced or anticipated all the difficulties and all aspirations of contemporary politicsdefining the almost biblical traits of a march through the desert of democracy and of the misery in which Italy found itself at the end of the Second World War.
“With sure step through paths never traveled before and involving all anti-fascist and democratic forces, De Gasperi led the country towards a new season of democracy – it is explained – and guaranteed Italy an economic framework and an international position in favor of reconstructiononce the Constitutional Charter was approved, the world opened up for Italian politics road of political confrontation and the militancy it allowed us to give identity and rights to a people and to imagine the European arrival as a real one promised land of peace and prosperityand as happened to Moses, the Trentino statesman will also die before reaching it with his people”.
And playing in metaphor, what transpires is that the yesterday’s desert is perhaps also a bit like today’s desert: “The Lectio degasperiana 2024 therefore tells us that, precisely at the moment of trial, lPolitical commitment can once again be inspired by the desire for the future and happiness, as long as the prophet does not sell illusions but speaks with words of truth, even at the cost of saying uncomfortable things and finding himself misunderstood. A political leader, capable of canceling himself in service to the common goodhe cannot be either vain or accommodating: that is how he was De Gasperia Christian Democrat in his own way, a free Catholic, who lived to the full the restlessness and torment of a magnificent task: to defend democracy with the method of freedom”.
The mode of booking and participation to the event, it is communicated by the organizers, will be communicated in the coming weeks.
