Rimini, August 21, 2026 – “The Meeting of Rimini is a significant event. Now in its 47th edition, it represents a history and, in times of extraordinary transformations, aims to continue contributing to building history, coherently weaving its own threads.” These are the words of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella contained in a message to the President of the Meeting Foundation for Friendship Among Peoples, Bernhard Scholz. The Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples starts today in the fair pavilions, will conclude on Wednesday the 26th, and tomorrow Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost, is expected. This year’s event finds its guidance in the famous concluding verse of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy: “The love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
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“This year the focus has been on love – he continues -. The concluding verse of Dante’s Comedy – ‘The love that moves the sun and the other stars’ – does not only express a feeling of individual experience. The love that opens to others – Mattarella adds –, beyond ourselves and our present, is an inner strength that takes on a relational and, therefore, social dimension, precious. Linking the I to the you, to the we, breaks solitude and gives direction to human paths. It is the opposite of false realism that leads to inertia, distrust, resignation, when instead the destiny of communities is to become protagonists of their own future. This was recalled by Pope Leo XIV in his ‘Magnifica humanitas’. A humanity not closed within illusory walls and condemned to selfishness, but open and sensitive to the injustices and dramas of those who suffer, ready to build new bridges. Solidarity, social friendship, the gratuity of love can open new horizons for politics, the economy, and civil life. We live in a time when reckless wars are being fought, inequalities grow while very narrow oligarchies accumulate powers greater than those of many sovereign states. It is from the humanity of women and men that energies can be drawn to reject conformity, passivity, hatred, aversion to the different, to the foreigner, to educate for peace,” he adds. “I wish the Meeting, and all those who will participate in the days in Rimini, to continue to generously build horizons of humanity,” concludes Mattarella.
An event attracting thousands of visitors
The Rimini event confirms itself as one of the most lively cultural and human squares on the international scene, attracting thousands of visitors, volunteers, representatives of institutions, the economic world, and various religious confessions. The declared goal of the organizers is to verify whether the ideal strength evoked by the title can translate into a concrete key to understanding today’s reality, capable of generating dialogue, new forms of sociality, and a model of technological and economic development that puts the authentic needs of the person at the center.
The program between debates, exhibitions, and cultural events
The program for the coming days will range from debates on industrial transformations and artificial intelligence, the challenges of education and international cooperation, alongside exhibitions and cultural events. As emphasized by the leaders of the Meeting Foundation, the challenge is to understand whether, faced with a sense of chaos and uncertainty, it is possible to recognize a common good from which to restart to build paths of peace and civil coexistence. The edition starting today and concluding on Wednesday the 26th promises to be particularly rich in political and spiritual meanings, offering a dense calendar of discussions among government actors, representatives of civil society, and witnesses from crisis areas such as the Middle East.
Anticipation for the Pope’s visit
Giving an exceptionally significant mark to the event will be the announced presence, on tomorrow, of Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost, whose participation underlines the centrality of the Rimini site as a privileged space for ecumenical dialogue, peace diplomacy, and the building of bridges between the shores of a divided world.
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