Like a cry for peace facing the world: Paris is preparing to welcome the international meeting for peace ‘Imaginer la Paix – Imagine Peace’, promoted by Community of Sant’Egidio together with theArchdiocese of Paris. After last year’s edition in Berlinthe community led by Mark Impagliazzo has chosen another great European capital – this year more than ever in the spotlight among the Olympic Games and the next reopening of Notre Dame in December – for ”imagine peace“, in a world tormented by wars and fratricidal conflicts, fromUkraine to the Middle Eastup to the many, too many, forgotten conflicts.
«I am very happy to be able to welcome the Community of Sant’Egidio in Paris. The multiplication of meetings of this type allows men and women of every country, of every creed or religion, to become peace buildersvectors of hope, to put peace at the centre of life”, declared theArchbishop of Paris, Monsignor Laurent Ulrichin a joint press conference with Impagliazzo in the conference room of the College of the Bernardins. Impagliazzo expressed gratitude towards the authorities ofBeyond the Alpsstarting with the president Emmanuel Macron and by Archbishop Ulrich, for the invitation along the banks of the Seine. «Paris is a great European city, but also a world-cityalways open to the world”, underlined the president of the Community of Sant’Egidio.
”Being here, in a renewed capitalwhich through the Olympics and Paralympics gave the world a new sign of unity and joy to be together through sport, it is very important”, continued Impagliazzo, evoking the imperative, “in the dark times we are going through”, to never stop «imagine peace“, with all the «creativity» which we can prove, as the founding fathers of the European Union after the catastrophe of the Second World War. For Impagliazzo, Paris is also a «a city where secular humanism and Christianity met», finally finding a original summaryas well as with theIslam and the Judaism. Synthesis, moreover, perfectly expressed in the famous motto and French Republic‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’, whose evocative power contributed to the affirmation of the values of theModern Europe.
But for Impagliazzo the meeting in Paris is also a «form of protest against the war“, to give a voice to those who suffer because of them.
From Sunday to September 24th the capital of France will therefore be reached by thousands of people, fromEurope and from other continents, including many young people: a “people of peace”atheist or of any faith or religion, who does not resign himself to the many wars underway in the world and who acts as a spokesperson for terrible suffering inflicted on populations.
The program is packed with events, frominaugurationon Sunday afternoon at Congress Palacewith the expected participation of Emmanuel Macronto the 21 Forum scheduled for the 23rd and the morning of the 24th on the problems of our time (such as peace, disarmament, environmental crisis, migrants, democracy And solidarity) up to the final ceremonyat 6pm on September 24, when secular humanists and exponents of all religions – starting from Christians, Jews and Muslims – they will meet together on the churchyard of Notre Dame. A moment of high symbolic value, during which a message will be read Pope Francisfollowed by a minute of silence for the victims of all wars and the lighting of the candelabra of peace. A new light of hope from Paris to the world against the darkness of war.