"A high-level benchmark to explore the most serious and pressing social issues at every time of Spanish life": this is how the Spanish Social Weeks have been defined by card. Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State of the Vatican, in a letter to José Tomás Raga Gil, president of the Social Weeks of Spain, on the occasion of the opening of the XL Social Weeks, in Toledo yesterday, about "Christian proposals for a culture of coexistence". "The word ‘coexistence’ wrote card. Bertone means the intention not to limit oneself to a non-committal tolerance, which results in the discrimination or marginalisation of those deep ideals and values that distinguish, more than anything else, the identity of individuals and groups. The respect of diversity does not mean subjection nor must it close the doors to friendship, harmony and cooperation in what is common to everybody, and first and foremost to the common good". The commitment, through the Social Weeks, to "spread the Social Doctrine of the Church as much in the areas of culture and research as in the conscience of everybody, called to give their contribution to the common good, according to their own conditions and responsibilities", according to card. Bertone, must take "special relevance" now that 100 years have passed since the launch of the Social Weeks.
