Religions for Peace – Europe
Interfaith encounter as a Peace Building Process European Assembly – Castel Gandolfo 28 Oct. – 1st Nov.. 2015 Organized in conjunction with the Focolare Movement Program
Fragments of light at Loppiano
Thousands come together around the work of this Italian artist that is so in tune with Pope Francis’s Laudato sì. For years Ciro has been recycling scrap material for his creations. 
Known as Ciro, Roberto Cipollone not only welcomes visitors, but runs workshops for young and old that bring them into direct contact with the materials that will be transformed and modeled together: “a pure way of seeing, simple, direct contact with the beautiful without any tinsel,” says the artist. Besides the studio in Loppiano, which is the true creative workshop, a permanent workshop has been set up by Sergio Pandolfi.
Ciro’s exhibition at Camaldoli
The Yardstick
“Outside the centrifugal action of love, human beings seem to hold on to whatever causes division. They find millions of reasons, through religion itself, to set themselves apart, nullifying that freedom of movement that had been restored by Jesus when he brought down the walls of division and established that there would no longer be neither Greek nor Jew, neither slave nor master, neither male nor female – but God would be in all, and all would be in God. (…) That is love’s goal: that is the goal of existence, to make all one. To make all the Oneness that is God. By the impulse of Divine Love, existence, all of history became a return march towards unity. Everything comes from God; everything returns to God. Making yourself one with a neighbour means disappearing in him, such that between God, my neighbour and me a direct passageway is established, through my elimination, an unobstructed descent – from Oneness to the other: and so I find God in that neighbour. The neighbour is like the temple that ignites God’s light. So, I find God in the Sacrament of the Altar and in the person of my neighbour, through the effect of love. The neighbour breaks down the barriers and, in the breach, allows life to flow: the life that is God. The neighbour is ianua caeli, “gate of Paradise”. There are Christians who go to serve the least, in the lowest social classes, not so much to convert them, but to convert themselves: giving love in the form of service (to the ailing, the unemployed, the elderly – all the social refuse as they are labeled), and they find Christ. Much more than they can ever give, therefore. They offer a loaf of bread and find the Father. They convert both the helpers and also the assisted. They become holy as they bless their neighbours. Therefore, you rise to God by descending beneath every human level, to serve all people from down there, on whatever plane they may be; whereas, the Jewish priest who did not look upon the unfortunate of this earth because his gaze was fixed on the God of Heaven, never found neither God nor neighbour. He never found God because he was never turned towards his neighbour. And this is a way of proceeding from the Father who proclaims his glory in highest heaven by allowing his Son to be born in the most humble of shelters: a stable, thus establishing a connection between stars and stables through the divinizing action of love. Thus, the last shall be the first in an overturning of logic, or rather, God’s way of calculating; his counting starts from the least while we start counting from the most. What is first for us becomes last for him, and what is last for us becomes first for him. And so wealth, power, glory which we consider to be first and foremost, God considers them to be last; they count for nothing and have to wait in line. This is the actual yardstick for measuring people and things.” (From Igino Giordani. Il fratello,(Rome: Città Nuova, 2011), pp.78-80.
Gen Verde: On the Other Side
Eleven songs in five languages: English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Korean. 47 minutes of pop-rock and world music, full of passion, force, vitality in music and words branded Gen Verde. According to the band’s manager, Sally McAllister, “This album is autobiographical and biographical at the same time.” It is an affirmation shared by all the members of the group. In fact, as they say, “It is biographical because the undisputed protagonist of this album is humanity that recounts its story: of people in the face of present-day challenges, the tragedies and conquests, history which marks the world’s pace, people moving along the roads of the planet in search of a land, dignity, and a place they can call their home.” But it is also autobiographical, since it is “imbued with our own stories and the musical cultures we come from.” “We wanted to try our hand,” the Gen Verde members say, “in recounting the moments and facts that marked a turning point in our lives. Different paths, with various departure points from physical sites and soul places that oftentimes are diametrically opposed but which all target that sole horizon of fraternity.” In fact, “Every piece tells a story, such as Voz de la verdad, a homage to Oscar Romero,” says the Salvadorean, Xochitl Rodríguez. And also Chi piange per te? – the cry of thousands of migrants on the banks of the Mediterranean, which continues to echo across Africa to Europe, and in every continent where people are forced to leave in order to survive. Another song You’re Part of Me is the interrupted story of the Korean people, who refuse to give in to the scandal of separation. The musical arrangement is K-pop, a genre that is very popular today with the young Koreans, and says the desire for unity is not an issue of 70 years ago, but is one of today, of this generation that will not give up.”
Mary, The Transparency of God
Ave Cerquetti, ‘Mater Christi’ – Roma, 1971