Last update: 2022-04-22 09:52:41
Rimini 22-28 August 2004
The public role of religions and the specific responsibility of Christians in contemporary society were two of the many subjects explored in the 25th edition of the Rimini Meeting, which is promoted every year by Communion and Liberation. In this edition, which had the title Our progress does not consist of supposing we have arrived, but in continuously focusing on the goal, the testimony of Mons. Warduni, Auxiliary Bishop of the Chaldean Church in Baghdad, was particularly moving. He recalled this Church's thousand-year tradition and finished his presentation by asking people to help Iraq emerge from the current downward spiral of violence which also puts the Christian presence in danger. Another particularly meaningful meeting took place between Samson Lukare Kwaje, official spokesman of the Movement for the liberation of Sudan, and Ahmed Rohman Mohmed, who brought the Sudanese government's greetings to Rimini. Since 1983 the country has been subject to a process of forced Islamisation by the Arab and Islamic north against the Christian and animist south. The dialogue between Mons. Diarmuid Martin, Primate of Ireland, and Claudio Morpurgo, Vice-President of the Italian Union of Jewish Communities, touched on important current issues. They discussed the meaning of secularity in the light of the lack of recognition of the Judeo-Christian roots of Europe. In his greetings to the participants of the Meeting, John Paul II reminded them that Christianity is the greatest factor in true progress, since Christ is the inexhaustible principle of renewal in man and society.
