Synod 2018

The Seminar on the State of Youth has begun

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The International Seminar on the Condition of Youth, organized by the Secretariat of the Synod, opened this afternoon in Rome, in view of the XV Ordinary General Assembly of Bishops on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment, scheduled for October 2018.
The world of the young will be approached from several points of view. Lectures by experienced scholars will alternate with communications from participants and young people invited to represent various socio-cultural and religious areas of all five continents. Discussions and work in language groups will allow a broad dialogue.

The Seminar will also be attended by some officials of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life who are working in this area: Father João Chagas, Head of the Youth Office, Giovanna Guerrieri, Elizabeth Hawkins, and Santiago Pérez de Camino, Head of the Church and Sports Office. At some moments, the Prefect, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, and the Secretary, Father Alexandre Awi Mello, will participate.

After the opening salutation of Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Secretariat of the Synod, the work was begun by Father Giulio Michelini, OFM, who held a biblical “overture” together with some young people. Then, the participants listened to one or two young people from each continent, different areas and cultures, who expressed themselves with regard to the Seminary’s key words: identity, projectivity, otherness, technology, and transcendence. These keywords will be deepened in the different sessions of the next few days.

The lecturers will include Chiara Amirante, founder of the community “Nuovi Orizzonti”, an association highly attentive to the world of the young and its difficulties, scholars and professors such as Philippe Bordeyne (Rector of the Institut Catholique de Paris, France), Leonardo Becchetti (University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy), Rosa Aparicio Gomez (Instituto Universitario de Investigación Ortega y Gasset, Madrid, Spain), Alvin P. Ang (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines), Angela Cristina Calvo (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina), Eric Salobir, OP (Promotor General of the Dominican Order for Social Communications, Paris, France), Ferdinand Muhigirwa, SJ (Director of the Research and Training Center in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo), Franco Garelli (University of Turin, Italy), Maria Marcela Mazzini (Universidad Católica Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina), and Eugenio Gaudio (Rector of the Sapienza University, Rome, Italy).

The conclusions, curated by Cardinal Baldisseri, will be held on Friday morning, September 15th.
 

11 September 2017