Abstract from Meic (Italia) Full text in italian here.

We must seize the opportunity of this period that has reshaped our lives, to begin a reflection together to understand what is happening and to discern the lessons to be learned and the new needs that are emerging.

– Living this period in hope: We propose to support each other through a space for sharing experiences on the website, with the aim of offering signs of hope, encouraging a debate that helps us all to feel part of a living community.

– To live the spiritual challenge of faith and the sense of limits. This is a dramatic moment, perhaps decisive, but in which faith can be rediscovered. We must relearn to accept uncertainty and risk, because they are part of the life.

– Christians and citizens: the health management of the pandemic has led to many restrictions on freedom, including freedom of worship: this obliges us to reflect more deeply on our dual identity as citizens and Christians and on what the weekly and annual celebration of Easter means to us.

– To build a future of greater solidarity with courage and foresight: this is what our Movement will have to achieve, after the crisis, with a view to the reconstruction of our country, Europe and the whole world. For this we have identified some important issues.

– Fraternity: perhaps we have understood that each one is responsible for the life of the other, that the dimension of “we” includes that of “the other”, and that this responsibility implies a certain limitation of personal freedom.

– The relationship between health and work: between the urgent need to shut down production activities in order to reduce contagion and protect people, and the need not to paralyze the economy completely.

– Health and social security policies, the pandemic has shown that if people do not have the means to treat themselves, they become dangerous for everyone.

– The educational relationship: The crisis situation has revealed problems among which, the strong inequality between schools. However, the contact via the platforms revealed new potentialities in the educational relationship. The crisis therefore highlights the urgency of a serious reflection on the social role played by the school.

– It will take a long time to regain confidence in the economy and work, but it will also be an opportunity to make new plans for the future. But we do not know whether we will be able to identify new models and whether the demands of ethical and social equity will be able to guide finance and markets.

– A lesson for tomorrow: After the coronavirus, it will be a difficult time for everyone, a kind of post-war period. We will be able to get out of it, not by trying to restore yesterday’s normality, but with a new normality, generated by everyone’s contribution, by a spirit of solidarity that we had lost and by a creativity that incorporates the mistakes of the past.