Young people ask questions to Roberto Repole, priest, theologian and professor of theology, coordinator of university pastoral care, now Archbishop of Turin, and Fabio Cantelli Anibaldi, philosopher, with a youthful experience of drug addiction, today vice-president of the Abele Group.
Is it possible to invite our friends to a Saturday evening focused on existential themes?” At first glance we might have answered no, and many of us repeated it: parents, friends, acquaintances... However, we decided to try anyway and yes, it was possible, we still don't know exactly how, but it happened.
The idea materializes in a date, a welcoming place, invited guests, lots of flyers... then Covid arrives and everything is put back in the drawer, until January 2022 when, having overcome the initial hesitation, we decide to take up the idea again.
We involve a couple of friends who immediately enthusiastically propose new ideas: thus we move on from the initial idea of dialogue believers – non-believers to a broader horizon in which everyone can recognize themselves with their own load of doubts and uncertainties, not so much to find the answers, but to cultivate the questions together.
The guests are socially recognized people: a theologian (who has since become Archbishop of a large city) and a writer and philosophical scholar (or seeker, as he likes to define himself), with a troubled past behind him, which he has been able to use to delve into the depths of himself and of humanity, making his life a perpetual search.
Despite their busy schedules, we are admired by the enthusiasm with which they both accept our proposal to speak not so much based on the role they hold, but rather based on the experience deriving from their daily lives.
With the help of a philosopher we focus on the great existential questions that are close to our hearts: the four themes of the evening take shape: IDEALS - JUSTICE - EVIL - SPIRITUALITY
Our desire is that the ideas to offer our guests do not just come from us, but that they reflect the questions and concerns of a larger and more heterogeneous group of young people. We organize two meeting moments open to friends and acquaintances to work on the major issues we have thought about and little by little, meeting after meeting, the evening takes shape!
A month before the big day we open online registration and start publicizing the event with friends, acquaintances and colleagues, proposing the evening in the most personal way possible, trying to reach everyone by establishing a relationship. The result: already 10 days before the 150 seats made available in the room were sold out.
The evening arrives. The audience is large and the guests seem to feel at ease straight away. At the end of the evening Fabio, one of the two interlocutors, will have the opportunity to communicate to us his amazement and emotion in grasping the great climate of communion and attention that reigned for several hours among all the participants in the evening.
Their great willingness to immediately delve into depth, putting their lives on the table with great courage and sensitivity, makes this an exciting moment, in which time appears suspended. The public role played by the guests gives way to the profound humanity of these two men, who for three hours dialogue on questions that no person can avoid. The profoundly different stories that characterize them do not prevent the emergence of a common sensitivity in which the points of contact are much more numerous than the differences: the meeting never takes the form of a debate, but remains a moment of profound sharing.
Many of the participants will reveal that they were moved at various moments, especially when the topics of illness and death were addressed.
The evening ends with an almost impromptu dinner in a pizzeria with about a hundred participants. Chatting around the table, it emerges how much the questions raised during this meeting are actually deeply felt among the young people of the world we live in, and how vital places for true and sincere discussion are.
Christina and Stephen (Torino)