“A party that comes from afar, a reason for friendship because it creates the conditions for meeting people who have luggage of different experiences, different cultures and religions, and which, for this reason, represent an opportunity for mutual enrichment and exchange to be directed towards a growth that marks a peaceful coexistence among us. It is a good initiative, with its particular importance because it coincides with this time wounded by conflict and war. Therefore, the presence of many people of different nationalities, and among them that of Ukrainian friends, is very significant because they will tell us how friendship is the fundamental channel. to create the conditions for hospitality: giving and receiving hospitality is good for everyone, both for the giver and the recipient. From them we will hear many stories and it will be important to listen to the reflections that arise from this meeting, from this friendship ”.
It opened with this introduction by Marco Arnolfo, archbishop of Vercelli, the ‘Festa dei Popoli’ which animated this weekend with two very popular events: on 6 October in the Seminar for the meeting on the theme “the challenges of hospitality ‘; the second, Friday 7 October, in the Gioin center of via Laviny; “Flights, Faces, Voices”, a miscellany of readings and reflections between music, food and scents, expressions of geographically distant cultures, but not spiritually distant. The novelty of this year sees the consistent presence of Ukrainians: a voice that shouts the will for peace and a return to that normality that the absurd war denies to Humanity.
Sister Alfonsina Zanatta, soul and director of this traditional appointment, he opened the works in the Seminar underlining “the amount of work underlying the realization of the party lightened by sharing, by the collaboration between the institutional subjects who have contributed over the years to the realization of this moment”. Thus emerges the spirituality of this feast declined in the values of brotherhood, hospitality, friendship which, in our city, translates into cooperative action between religious, public and third sector actors, always at the forefront for an effective welcome. The councilor for social policies, Ketty Politi, retraced the journey of this feast that “from Father Enrico Masseroni reaches Father Marco Arnolfo. A fourteen year long road marked by innovation for contents, for the enrichment emerging from common reflections, for the contribution given by the partnership with local authorities, CSV, Caritas, Emporio solidale and the UPO“. The symbolic importance of this moment stems from the continuity over time since the “Festa dei Popoli” is not concentrated in this month of October, but lasts all year round. We are constantly working to make friends, to be together, especially in recent years defined by major problems such as the war and the pandemic ”.
The meeting was enlivened by the presence of the professor Luca Ghisleri of the Upo who immediately highlighted a central dimension of the party which is “the encounter between different identities but open to difference”. The same gave his contribution on the “challenges of hospitality as a difficult task because hosting, making room for others is a difficult operation as it requires openness. Hospitality is sacred because man tends to be closed, but if he opens up to others and welcomes the different, he attenuates fear of the other ”. Furthermore: “Digging into our history we find an intertwining of cultures characterized by difference. Europe itself was born from the Greco-Roman culture. Each type of culture is determined by the difference, therefore, opening ourselves to the other, going towards others I am able to know and deepen myself. A kind of consciousness, of ‘infinity’ in which we can hear the voice of God ”.
Instead, the idea of friendship proposed by Sister Alfonsina is decidedly clear: “Friendship does not admit roles, hierarchies, more important people who know more and less important people who know less. Because those who have studied a little less may be rich for a very profound experience and maybe for a painful life. Maybe all this has made him more human and for this reason he has acquired a precious dignity of the human being. The Festa dei Popoli has always been the meeting place and this year in particular it emerges the theme of friendship without roles, given by the relationship characterized by mutual respect and recognition, by trust in others. We can hope that this will also become a style for our ways of being together in the Vercelli community. With friends we are hospitable, and this is the way to fully enter into the spirit of the festival ”. A significant moment was that of conviviality which “constitutes a pillar of hospitality: the sharing of food and the most important food, the bread, which recalls the crisis in the grain supply ”: another nonsense connected with the war. Precisely to draw attention to these anachronistic and fatal issues, the convivial moment of the festival was characterized by the distribution of unsold bread offered by some city bakeries.
On the evening of Friday 7 the mayor intervened Andrea Corsaro together with the Honorable Emanuele Pozzolo, to the deputy mayor Massimo Simion and to the assessors Ketty Politi and Domenico Sabatino. Even the mayor gave his contribution on the theme: “It is a great pleasure to participate in this party that has been renewed for many years. Friendship between us is necessary to understand the needs of each other, to understand the peculiarities of others, the specificities of each of us. This Festival also represents the value of our city, of being useful for others by following our path of life. The hope is that everyone’s wishes can be realized through friendship ”.
Vercelli: “Hospitality, otherness and conviviality: the ways of meeting and friendship”