The Meeting in Budapest

“The message of Saint Stephen and the thousand year-long history of Hungary, a history also of integration of peoples, is contemporarily relevant for today’s Europe, which is uncertain of her roots, shaken by quick financial turmoil, and afraid of the cultures and religions of immigrant people.” These words by Fillippo Farkas, president of the association CDO Hungary - Alkotó Társasága, concluded the press conference held June 22nd at the Institute of Italian Culture of Budapest which aimed to present XXXI edition of the Meeting and the exhibit dedicated to Saint Stephen. Salvatore Ettore, director of the Institute, hosted the event and stressed the great Italian contribution that the Meeting makes to the world.
“Like the CDO (Company of Works), the Meeting documents a new way and taste for living the world,” underlined Filippo Farkas introducing the theme of the conference. “Starting from this, following the intuition of Prof. Domokos, we have decided to bring Stephen of Hungary to the Meeting. From this intuition was born a spontaneous organization: students and adults that are re-studying Saint Stephen in order to present him to the thousand of people in Rimini. Why does this happen? And why do so many young people during the week of the Meeting crowd the cultural events inside the pavilions of the convention center instead of going to the beach?”

Sandro Ricci, director of the Meeting, presented the origins and the reasons for the Meeting and also the 2010 program. “The exhibit dedicated to Stephen of Hungary,” he stated, “that will arrive at the Meeting is an occasion for which we are thankful to the friends who are preparing it, for the amazing job they are doing; we are thankful and happy for the relationship that started with the Hungarian Embassy in Italy. The Meeting lives of this, of the relationships that open up to other relationships, of the encounter with people who share our ideal, our goals.”
“Last week I read on the online newspaper IlSussidiario.net,” continued the director of the Meeting introducing this year’s title, “a commentary to an article published in the New York Times on June 6th by the known philosopher Peter Singer, in which he was posing himself this question: ‘Why when deciding whether to have a baby people only think about the possibility or not of a genetic illness and never even take into consideration the possibility that he might have a happy life?’ At this point the commentator of the Singer’s article tells of the theoretical experiment that is proposed:
‘Why don’t we make our generation the last one on earth through a mass sterilization? In this way, freed from the thought of future generations, we could simply enjoy the time that separates us from extinction, freely exploiting the planet, aware of the fact that the extinction of the human race would not be anything tragic: being human life ultimately unhappy, we would not damage anyone by preventing them from being born. In the end, if we understand this, what is the problem in imagining an Earth without men?’

I was struck by the sentence ‘being human life ultimately unhappy.’ But is it like this, is it true that man is destined to be unhappy, to see his own desires unsatisfied? Why then do millions of men, get up every day, work, build families, get involved in great enterprises and in small daily happenings? Is everything the result of chance or of man’s biological mechanisms? Man, this is the theme of this year’s Meeting, is above all his desire for great things, his heart. It is this desire for the infinite, for something that exceeds the measure of every thing in reality that makes him move and pushes him to do something in this life. What is the problem? That many, like Singer for example, tell us that it is an illusion, that to desire something apparently impossible, thinking that they might be happy, is at best something typical of teenagers. But this desire of man for great things is there, continues to be there, even if everything conspires to keep it silent. How many are the men who, in history, even in difficult situations, have continued to desire happiness, something great? What the Meeting wants to communicate is that we don’t have to forget how the human heart is made; that the only possibility for man for truly living, being free and thus irreducible to every power and ideology, is to take seriously one’s own heart, one’s own desire.”

Professor György Domokos, director of the Italian Department of the Catholic University Péter Pázmány, told about the adventure and the challenge that see him as the creator and curator of the exhibit along with twenty of his students and volunteer friends: to make known and actual the figure of a king of the year 1000, rediscover him as a common patrimony of the European tradition. The program organized by Prof. Domokos will bring Hungarian students to Rimini to present the exhibit (in Italian) along with other Italian volunteers, thus realizing a good example of didactic innovation.
“It is a miracle,” he asserted, “how our idea met the title of this year’s Meeting. And listening to our guides who are already preparing themselves, people in Rimini will be able to understand how Saint Stephen is the answer to the title of the Meeting. Saint Stephen is almost common knowledge for us, we all can say at least a couple of words about him; but we have to understand that we would not be here without him. He is a saint because he is the example of a heart able to create great things.”

Second Secretary Dr. Márk Aurél Érszegigave the greetings from the Hungarian Embassy in Italy; he stressed the strategic importance of the deepening of the already good relationship between Italy and Hungary. “I have two reasons,” he said, “for being happy for the presence of the Saint Stephen’s exhibit at the Meeting. Personally I am happy because it is an idea that has generated good fruits. I have been to the Meeting and I know what being there means. Those of you who know Italy, know that the heart of Italy in the summer is in Rimini. Additionally, for us there is Hungary with an exhibit and we can show it to Italy and to the international visitors. The crown of Saint Stephen, which will be reproduced in the exhibit, is a symbol of the common good. It does not regard then only heritage, our history, but today. It is a great occasion for an encounter: between Hungary and Italy there is the possibility of a reawakening, a rebirth of the relationship.”

To conclude, the director of the Institute Salvatore Ettorestressed once more the actuality of Saint Stephen: “In a moment of crisis of values, a re-proposal of the crown of Saint Stephen means showing to people that behind him are a tradition, some values; this crown is a symbol, an emblem of a country, a people, and a history. This forces us to ask ourselves: where are we going? Is it right to have a common platform?”