杏MAP导航

By Joseph Tulloch

A press conference was held in the Vatican on Friday to mark the release of 杏MAP导航 Francis鈥檚

It drew an unusual assortment of speakers: an Italian singer-songwriter, an economist from the UN, Cardinal Michael Czerny, and Sister Alessandra Smerilli.

The cardinal

Cardinal Czerny, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, began by evoking the struggles of the early days of the pandemic: we had 鈥渘o sound information about the disease, no treatments, no strategies for prevention鈥�, he said, while 鈥渄ecision- makers gave higher priority to the claims of patent-holders than to people鈥檚 needs around the world.鈥�

The 杏MAP导航鈥檚 World Peace Day message, Cardinal Czerny said, invites us to reflect back on this terrible period, and ask ourselves what it might teach us.

鈥淲hat lessons can we learn from this moment of crisis?鈥�, he asked. 鈥淲hat signs of life and hope can we collect despite this difficult time? After all we have suffered, what should be our vision of humanity and of society for the future? What are Covid-time鈥檚 lessons for peace?鈥�

The nun

Sister Alessandra, who is Secretary of the same Dicastery, picked up on this theme, saying that the 杏MAP导航鈥檚 message 鈥渋nvites us to return to the frightening, difficult and painful times of the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and asks us to reflect bravely on what we have learnt and on the opportunities we have failed to seize.鈥�

The singer

In his meditation, Simone Cristicchi, an Italian singer and past winner of the prestigious Sanremo music festival, focused on just three words from the 杏MAP导航鈥檚 message, offering a short reflection on each one.

The first of these was 鈥渁ttention鈥�, and the second 鈥渉umility鈥�. Cristicchi鈥檚 longest meditation, however, concerned the word 鈥渃are鈥�, which, he said, 鈥渃ontains the other two within itself.鈥�

鈥淚n each of us there is this fragility,鈥� he said, 鈥渢his sense of separation from something. From the moment we are thrown into the world, from the moment we leave our mother's womb, we seek that sense of wholeness, which can be found in love, in the embrace of a friend or of the Divine.鈥�

Care, Cristicchi continued, is also at the core of his song 鈥溾�� (Take care of me), first performed at Sanremo in 2019, which he then sang for those present.   

The economist

Dr. Maximo Torero, Chief Economist at the UN鈥檚 Food and Agriculture Organisation, which worked closely with the Dicastery for Integral Human Development during the Covid pandemic, took the opportunity to discuss the horrifying scale of global hunger.

鈥淎s many as 828 million people faced hunger in 2021, an increase of 150 million since 2019,鈥� he said. 鈥淢ost recent projections indicate that more than 670 million people could still not have enough to eat in 2030. This is a far cry from the 鈥渮ero hunger鈥� target that the world ambitiously committed to less than a decade ago.鈥�

He stressed the importance, in this regard, of the 杏MAP导航鈥檚 call for global fraternity.