Press Release
“(In)equalities: the diocese listens to the city
50 years on from the “Ills of Rome”
On Friday 16, at 12.15, a press conference in the Hall of the Emperors of the Lateran Apostolic Palace will present the event to be held on Monday 19 at 16.00 in the Conciliation Hall, to commemorate and renew commitment to responsibility. A letter will be addressed to the city
On Friday 16 February, in the Hall of the Emperors of the Lateran Apostolic Palace, at 12.15, a press conference will be held to present the event “(In)equalities”, scheduled to take place in the Conciliation Hall of the Lateran Apostolic Palace on 19 February at 16.00. It is an event organized fifty years after the conference “The responsibility of Christians faced with expectations of charity and justice in the city of Rome”, better known as the conference on the “Ills of Rome”, which took place from 12 to 15 February 1974, in order to commemorate the event, to call to the city and to renew the commitment to responsibility. During the press conference, a letter to the city will be distributed, so that it may be “salt and leaven” with a view to the 19 February conference and another four events which will take place in various places in the Capital in the coming months - from March to June – on specific themes: school, health, work, and home. Moderated by Fr. Giulio Albanese, director of the Social Communications Office of the diocese of Rome, the speakers will be Bishop Baldo Reina, vice gerent of the diocese of Rome; Msgr. Giuseppe Lorizio, theologian and director of the Office for Culture of the diocese of Rome; Luigina Di Liegro, secretary general of the Don Luigi Di Liegro International Foundation; Augusto D’Angelo, professor of contemporary history at La Sapienza University of Rome; and Giustino Trincia, director of Caritas Rome.
The conference on 19 February in the Conciliation Hall will instead be opened by greetings from Cardinal Vicar Angelo De Donatis; the president of the Lazio Region, Francesco Rocca, and a representative of the Municipality of Rome. This will be followed by interventions from Andrea Riccardi, historian and founder of the Sant’Egidio Community; Giuseppe De Rita, sociologist and founder of Censis; Luigina Di Liegro, secretary general of the Don Luigi Di Liegro International Foundation; Pierciro Galeone, vice president of the Don Luigi Di Liegro Foundation; and Giustino Trincia, director of Caritas Rome. Entry is will be open to all and free of charge, subject to availability of places, and the event will also be livestreamed on the YouTube channel of the diocese of Rome.
Cardinal De Donatis states: “Commemorating the Conference and re-proposing its approach is an opportunity for the Christian community to reconsider and renew its vocation to charity. But it is also an offer of collaboration and a call to co-responsibility, addressed to the urban community as a whole. Rome shares, with all other large cities, an ambivalent role. They are places where financial resources, skills, businesses and work are concentrated. But they are also spaces where inequality and marginality, tensions and social conflicts are strongest. Inequalities are the ills of our time”.
Journalists and media workers who wish to attend the press conference and/or the conference must apply up to 24 hours before the event, exclusively via the Holy See Press Office online accreditation system, at: press.vatican.va/accreditamenti.
10 February 2024
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Giulia Rocchi, Social Communications Office of the Vicariate of Rome
tel. +390669886343/150; +393393749085
e-mail stampa@diocesidiroma.it; giulia.rocchi@diocesidiroma.it
