“Blessed are the peacemakers”: this is the title of a meeting, which took place on 23 April in the FIABA multipurpose room, on the Isolotto, organized and promoted in collaboration between various city entities (Circolo 25 April, Florentine Committee Let’s Stop the War, Isolotto Community, Women together for peace, Florence open city, Isolotto Parish, 11 August Association). The meeting was intended to be linked to the torchlight procession on 23 October 2023 conceived by p. Bernardo Gianni, abbot of San Miniato al Monte, attended by thousands of people and representatives of various religious confessions, convinced that peace requires active and aware operators. Since, as the biblical scholar father wrote Alberto Maggi «peacemakers are people who create conflict situations for the peace of others, peacebuilders are great pains in the ass because for the peace of others they are willing to lose their own».
They attended the meeting, which was well attended p. Bernardo Giannithe president of the city council of Florence Luca Milani, Daniela Dacci representing the group Women together for peace, and the new archbishop of Florence Don Gherardo Gambelliformer parish priest of the parish of Our Lady of the Cough and former missionary in Chad.
Don Luca Niccheri, parish priest of the Isolotto, in the presentation of the evening recalled that «ideas for peace can arise from meeting, from dialogue, from mutual listening, from renouncing oppression. It is up to everyone to keep the urgency for peace high in times when there seems to be a great desire for war.”
In his speech, Father Bernardo observed, among other things, that «the problem that looms over us is enormous and requires a choral, plenary, intelligent, cordial, prophetic response, aware that peace is a gift that needs to be safeguarded of delicacy, of breathing, of the rhythm of the heart, of concreteness and also of a strong embrace because without this embrace peace becomes a victim of fear and violence and risks dissolving.” «If last October silence was necessary in some ways, now words are more important». “We need to give voice again to everything that in the meantime our hearts and our intelligence intend to say against war, against violence and against a language that kills the future with weapons.” “It could be a mobilization that puts some key words at the center in some critical and significant places in the city.” «We must find together as citizens, as neighborhoods, as an ecclesial community, as a laity, guidelines that correspond to the vocation inscribed in the heart of our city» as he said Giorgio La Pira in 1954 on the occasion of the inauguration of the new Isolotto district.
Luca Milani focused on the resolution, recently approved by the City Council, of Florence as a city that promotes peace and solidarity as he asked for a resolution from the 1980s inspired by the urgency of a large pacifist movement that brought together millions of people fearful of the nuclear threat in the streets , which is present today more than ever. The resolution proposes multiple concrete actions, including the establishment of a consultation for peace and solidarity, in which the associations, movements and entities actively engaged in the issues of peace, non-violence and solidarity and against any form of discrimination and culture of hatred.
Daniela Dacci began by bearing testimony to the small things that as a group of women together for peace they propose to do to keep attention alive in the city, relying on the words that: «between killing and dying there is a third way…living. This is why we do everything to ask for a ceasefire, disarmament, so as not to choose the use of weapons as the only way to resolve conflicts. Our Iranian sisters and mothers tell us this. This was shown to us by the courage of the Jewish and Arab activists who dared to work together to ask for a peace agreement and who for this reason marched and launched a heartfelt appeal to all the women of the world to unite to stop the madness that “every mother Jewish, and every Arab mother, bring their children into the world to bury them and not see them grow and flourish””. He concluded his speech by saying: «This is what, in our small way, we have done. A grain, we are aware of it. But we will continue to do everything we can to keep attention high, hoping to make a contribution so that we can build a mobilization worthy of the horror we are witnessing, an abyss of barbarism, the entire catalog of war crimes unprecedented levels. We don’t want to arm ourselves, we want to take care of the world. There is no other path for us.”
Don Gherardo Gambelli called for the need to network, to connect forces because in moments like these when it seems like nothing can be done, one must find the energy to believe that a lot can be done instead. He recalled the recent initiative of some Florentine parishes to commit themselves to celebrating mass every first Sunday of the month, placing emphasis on prayer for peace, because «This seems important to us, the peace that is built from below, with moments of prayer and reflection.”
Many interventions by those present followed; at this link you can see the recording of the entire meeting.
*Cropped photo by 91 alex, taken from commons wikimedia, original image and license
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