A rainbow of peace emerges from the Cloud Convention Center in Rome: it is the new and post-pandemic world that the leaders of all religions, gathered in the inter-religious meeting "Peoples as Brothers, Future Earth", are called to build. It is the invitation of Marco Impagliazzo, President of the Community of Sant'Egidio; he is joined by Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, for whom the Covid-19 "has made more evident the fact that all the peoples of the earth belong to the one human family". Political leaders, religious leaders and all humanity must therefore seize the opportunity given by this moment of change to "build the future on rock and not on sand", stressed Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of the Church of England. Tolerance is the future, argued Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, holder of the world's first and only Ministry of Tolerance and Coexistence, established by the United Arab Emirates. "We are committed to working with all individuals and nations," he said, "to ensure genuine respect and compassion for the dignity of every human being and to preserve basic human rights for all."
"The key word for understanding how we should build tomorrow is 'together'. A word that not only expresses an invitation to share, but also refers to an alliance with future generations", echoed his Italian colleague Luciana Lamorgese, Minister of Interior in Italy, who also recalled the experience of the humanitarian corridors and the collaboration with the Community of Sant'Egidio.
At the end of the opening assembly, Marco Impagliazzo, greeting the delegations of the world religions, said: "What we have heard from the great wisdom of the different religious traditions, as His Holiness Bartholomew said to us, "a new beginning is only possible together" and we are so much in agreement with these words, because we have all lived this new and painful experience, global, but as Rabbi Pinchas reminded us, it did not bring us down, it did not end the world. There is a great presence before us if we manage to rethink the world, with new criteria on new paths, if we rethink the world as a community. A community that shows every day the need to be together, especially starting from the suffering of so many people who are discarded, invisible, marginalised in this world of ours. The common belonging that today has shown itself in all its greatness and novelty, for the great joy of meeting each other in person".
