” “"Translating the Council into Italian": this is the guiding principle of the IV National ecclesial meeting, as explained by card. Dionigi Tettamanzi, President of the Preparatory committee, in his speech which opened the meeting, this afternoon, after Eucharist celebrated at the Arena in Verona. As we get to the "roots" of the Meeting, added the cardinal, "we speak not only of hope, but also, and above all, with hope. Hope as a virtuous style, even more than as a content". From this perspective, hope "is an essential and integral part of Christian realism". Of course, explained the cardinal, "no one can deny or diminish the existence of the very many evils" of this time in history, but everyone "can and must recognise" that hope is not just a "wish" which "only concerns future", but "is a very real, very topical reality which never leaves our earth". "Countless" are the seeds and the proactive works that are being done "in our churches and in our society", commented the cardinal, who urged "to reappraise some of the ecclesial journeys we are carrying on, to let ourselves run into the challenges they are marked by nowadays and to settle those challenges with the strength of our testimony".” “
