29 April 2025
“The Meeting? It’s an open house, wide open to the world, a mine of precious stones.” For Paolo, who has taken part since the very first edition, the Meeting is not just an annual event but an essential part of his life. A place where he has experienced “encounters, exhibitions, and performances that have enriched my life, opening it up to the universe.”
In Paolo’s story, the Meeting becomes a window onto infinity, a space where encounters with humanity — in all its facets — become a tangible and transformative experience. “Saints like Saint John Paul II or Mother Teresa of Calcutta, artists like Congdon and Ionesco, Eric Emmanuel Schmitt, figures from other religions like Joseph Weiler or Wael Farouq,” he recalls, “I met them in person. Or through exhibitions, such as those about Paolo Takashi, Judge Livatino, or Etty Hillesum. Men and women who have become companions on my journey through life.”
This journey reached a turning point in 2006 when Paolo decided to move from being a visitor to someone who actively builds, animates, and makes the Meeting possible: a volunteer. He started with the PreMeeting and later dove into the experience of the Trentino Restaurant, which he describes as “an extraordinary community experience that left a deep mark on those who took part. Fifteen years later, people still ask: when are you doing it again?”
Since 2011, Paolo has been a regular volunteer in the “Food Hall Department”, a role he sees as much more than simple service. “In recent years, it has become an exciting commitment, one that continues throughout the year,” he says enthusiastically.
According to Paolo, the Meeting is a powerful symbol of a concrete possibility: the possibility of coexistence, authentic encounters, and building something new amidst the desert of our time. “The Meeting is the concrete proof that real friendship among people and nations is possible. It is a mine of precious stones, of rare lands, of renewable energies, a new brick factory with which to build in the desert and to create a new world.”
And that is what makes the Meeting so attractive, so surprising to anyone who comes close. “Everyone — absolutely everyone: men, women, children, families — can find something for themselves at the Meeting; everyone I know who has attended has been surprised and won over by the ‘fever for life’ that you can breathe and touch there. For me, it is a very high form of witness and mission that we can offer to the world.”
Hence comes a heartfelt appeal, full of the flavor of shared responsibility: “It is important — I would even say essential — to support it; it is like the construction of medieval cathedrals, where the common people dedicated their energies because life for each and for all blossomed around them.”
Paolo’s story makes the Meeting a living, human, essential place. A workshop of meaning that keeps on generating beauty, year after year.
