2021 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION. OCTOBER 21ST-23RD VATICAN CITY
2021 INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION
Solidarity, Cooperation and Responsibility:
the antidotes to fight injustices, inequalities and exclusions
OCTOBER 21-22-23, 2021
New Synod Hall, Vatican City
(Petriano Gate Entrance, Piazza del Sant’Uffizio)
General Assembly
Thursday October 21st, 2021
The Foundation’s action at the service of integral human development
2 .30 – 2.45 pm Opening addresses
2.45 – 3.15 pm Meditation led by H.E. Msgr. Dr. Everard de Jong, Ecclesiastical Counsellor, Netherlands Chapter of CAPP Foundation (CAPPF)
3.15 – 3-30 pm Anna Maria Tarantola, CAPPF Chairwoman – Synthesis of the Foundation’s work over the past year and outline of ongoing projects
3.30 – 3.40 pm Alberto Borgia, CAPPF Secretary General – Presentation of 2020 Financial Statements
3.40 – 3.55 pm Giovanni Marseguerra, Coordinator of CAPPF Scientific Committee – Presentation of papers submitted by the Groups
3.55 – 5.15 pm Round table
Moderator: Cristina Finocchi Mahne, member of CAPPF Scientific Committee
5.15 – 5.45 pm Questions from the floor
5.45 – 6.00 pm Closing address by H.E. Msgr. Nunzio Galantino, President of APSA
7.30 pm Concert – Basilica of San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini, Via Acciaioli, 2 (Via Giulia)
International Conference
Friday, October 22nd, 2021
08.15 am Holy Mass celebrated by Father Nazario Costante – Church of Our Lady of Mercy in the Teutonic Cemetery
09.00 – 09.10 am Welcome address and presentation, Anna Maria Tarantola, CAPPF Chairwoman
09.10 – 09.20 am Welcome address, Giovanni Marseguerra, Coordinator of CAPPF Scientific Committee
09.20 – 09.50 am Meditation, His Eminence Cardinal Luis Antonio G. Tagle, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples – The lessons of the pandemic and the role of SDC in the path of evangelization
09.50 – 11.00 am Session 1
Solidarity joins the fray to fight old and new emergencies and achieve a global integral development
09.50 – 10.05 am Keynote speaker: Joachim von Braun, President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Director of the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn – The role of solidarity in pursuing the sustained improvement of people’s living conditions and nature
10.05 – 10.20 am Keynote speaker: Gérard Mourou (SLIDES) Nobel Prize in Physics 2018, IZEST Directeur, Prof. Ecole Polytechnique Haut Collège, Prof. Emeritus University of Michigan USA – Science’s contribution to the pursuit of an integral human development model
10.20 – 11.00 am Round Table
Moderator: Robert A. Nalewajek, Director, CAPPF
Panelists:
Gundo Weiler, Director of the Division of Country Support and Health Emergencies, World Health Organization – How can solidarity be put into practice: some concrete cases
Maryanne Wolf, expert in cognitive neuroscience and education, Professor-in-residence and Dean of the Center for Dyslexia Diverse Learners and Social Justice, UCLA, member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences – Education for people with disabilities as a factor of social justice and progress.
11.00 – 11.30 am Questions from the floor
11.30 – 11.45 am Coffee break
11.45 am-1.00 pm Session 2
The role of cooperation between nations and peoples in the pursuit of a fairer, more supportive and inclusive new world
11.45 –12.00 pm Keynote speaker: Elisa Ferreira, European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms – Cooperation in Europe, difficulties and solutions
12.00–12.15 pm Keynote speaker: H.E. Msgr. Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with the States – The Holy See’s international strategy at government level in an environment fraught with new pandemic induced inequalities
12.15-1.00 pm Round table
Moderator: Nick Brown, Principal, Linacre College, Oxford
Panelists:
Piero Cipollone, Deputy Director General, the Bank of Italy – Financial inclusion as enabling factor in social development goals and financial education as empowering competence for the vulnerable and underserved
Daniel Gustafson, Special Representative of the Director-General at FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) of the United Nations – The importance of cooperation in fighting hunger and poverty
Irene Heemskerk, Head of Climate Change Centre, ECB – Cooperation in economics is possible in addressing the climate crisis? The role of the ECB
1.00-1.30 pm Questions from the floor
1.30-3.00 pm Lunch
3.00-5.10 pm Session 3
Responsibility in the construction of a new model of supportive and sustainable development
3.00 – 3.15 pm Keynote speaker: Roberto Cingolani, Minister of Ecological Transition – The responsibility of governments and politics in achieving a just ecological transition
3.15 – 3.30pm Keynote speaker: Fabiola Gianotti, (SLIDES) Physicist, Director-General, CERN, Geneva – Science as a value system for a sustainable world
3.30 – 4.15 pm Round table
Moderator: Elena Beccalli, Dean, School of Banking Finance and Insurance, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Panelists:
Vincent de Rivaz, former CEO, EDF Energy – The role of management in combining efficiency, sustainability and inclusion
H.E. Bishop Paul Tighe (SLIDES), Secretary, Pontifical Council for Culture –Reconstructing consensus and trust in a digital age: dialogue and the search for truth in the context of the pandemic
4.15 – 5.00 pm Testimonials – Responsibility of the young
Moderator: Gert-Jan Boon, CAPPF YIN Group
Panelists:
Giulio Vittorio Cervi, Rapporteur of the Report on the Future of Europe, President emeritus of the European Generation Association – The young’s responsibility in pursuing a supportive and cohesive Europe (10’)
Marianna Rusche – Experience of CAPP’s youth group (10’)
Andrea Viola, Adjunct Professor of Banking, Financial and Insurance Science, Università Cattolica del S. Cuore – Experience of “oeconomicae et pecuniariae questions” laboratories (10’)
5.00 – 5.20 pm Closing address, Rev. Father Nicola Riccardi, Undersecretary, Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Professor of Economics at Antonianum University
7.00 – 7.45 pm Tour of the Galleria Colonna – Palazzo Colonna, Entrance Piazza Santi Apostoli, 66
8.00 pm Dinner at the Galleria del Cardinale – Palazzo Colonna, Entrance Via della Pilotta, 17/a
Simultaneous translation from English into Italian and vice versa will be available
Saturday, October 23rd, 2021
09.00 am Holy Mass celebrated by His Excellency Msgr. Angelo V. Zani – Basilica of St. Peter, Altare della Cattedra
10.30 am Address of His Eminence Pietro Cardinal Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State
Private Audience with the Holy Father
Welcome address to the Holy Father by the CAPP Chairwoman
Address of His Holiness Pope Francis
Conclusions and recommendations Lord Daniel Brennan KC and Dr. Steven Young
CONCEPT NOTES
The 2021 International Conference was hold at the delicate post pandemic time and coincided with the 30th anniversary of Centesimus Annus, the end of the year Pope Francis is devoting to Laudato Sì and the new Encyclical All Brothers. From these Encyclicals and from Caritas Veritate, which together represent a fundamental part of the Magisterium, we can draw many fruitful teachings; they reflect the continuity of the Social Doctrine of the Church, capable of renewal while remaining faithful to its inspiring principles. This ability to renew itself while remaining faithful to its founding values is the compass by which we shall be able to work out how to address the devastating impact of Covid-19 and the many other pandemics that afflict our planet: poverty, injustice, inequality, wars.
Thirty years ago St. John Paul II in Centesimus Annus taught us that “Man fulfils himself by using his intelligence and freedom. In so doing he utilized the things of this world as objects and instruments and makes them his own (CA, 43) but at the same time stated “It is not wrong to want to live better; what is wrong is a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed towards “having” rather than “being“, and which wanted to have more, not in order to be more but in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself.75 It is therefore necessary to create life-styles in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments. …… I am referring to the fact that even the decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one productive sector rather than another, is always a moral and cultural choice. (CA, 36). Pope John Paul II also pointed out that “Equally worrying is the ecological question which accompanies the problem of consumerism and which is closely connected to it”. “Instead of carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized than governed by him” CA, 37). And further on “In this regard, humanity today must be conscious of its duties and obligations towards future generations.” (CA, 37)
Caritas in Veritate and Laudato Sì invite and urge us likewise. In 2015, twenty four years after Centesimus Annus, Pope Francis remarked that man had not changed his lifestyle, consumerism still prevailed, the planet was devastated … and launched a pressing appeal: “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change.” (LS, 13).
In 2020 the devastating coronavirus pandemic dramatically evidenced that thirty years after Centesimus Annus, twelve years after Caritas in Veritate (June 29, 2009) and five after Laudato Sì nothing had changed; in some way things are even worse.
Now we have to deal with reconstruction. What kind of a world should we be aiming for? Pope Francis urged us not to go back to the old but build a new one through a process of regeneration. A regeneration that must begin from man, responsible behaviors conducive to the common good and guided by solidarity, charity and truth. Development needs truth, without it, Pope Benedict XVI says, “social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation” (CV, 5).
The thread linking the three encyclicals is the belief that the crisis of our society is rooted in an anthropological problem: the way man relates with God, with oneself, with the others and with nature. The integral ecology, forcefully advocated by Pope Francis and firmly inserted in the patrimony of the Social Doctrine of the Church, allows us to address this situation by going to the root of our problems and difficulties.
The three encyclicals invited us to reflect on the meaning of our existence, on the use we make of the instruments at our disposal. They emphasized the utter interdependence of the earth’s inhabitants, among themselves and with nature. They show the way towards inclusive economic and political institutions and new educational and cultural models that must be put in place to promote new behaviors and lifestyles, abandoning the individualistic and relativistic paradigm of consumption, waste, short term profit.
On the basis of the teachings of these encyclicals and continuing in the wake of previous International Conferences, in 2021 we addressed the perennial problems of injustice, inequality and exclusion in the light of three antidotes at our disposal: solidarity, cooperation and responsibility. Enhancing sustainable, inclusive ang just development towards thrivability it is necessary to change educational models, governance, business models and lifestyle – we have already examined these aspects, during our past International Conference. But these changes cannot be pursued without a convinced and strong rootedness to the principles of solidarity, cooperation and responsibility.
The Popes’ teachings invite us to look for the authentic and transcendental meaning of man’s doings, of work, business and finance, in order to address health, ecological and socio-economic emergencies; He invited us to be fully aware of our personal responsibility, of the need to respect our own and others’ dignity, and to live this responsibility in our daily actions in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation because this is how we can make community life more just.