Vatican City, 14 April 2015 (VIS) – A
press conference was held this morning in the Holy See Press Office
to present the Holy See Pavilion at “EXPO Milan” 2015, Italy, to
be held from 1 May to 31 October this year, which will take as its
theme: “Not by bread alone”. The Pavilion was promoted,
constructed and organised by the Pontifical Council for Culture, the
Italian Episcopal Conference, the diocese of Milan and the Pontifical
Council “Cor Unum”.
The speakers at the conference were
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for
Culture and commissioner general for the Holy See for EXPO 2015;
Msgr. Domenico Pompili, under-secretary of the Italian Episcopal
Conference (CEI) and Msgr. Luca Bressan, episcopal vicar for culture,
charity, the mission and social action in the diocese of Milan.
Cardinal Ravasi explained that “the
presence of the Holy See Pavilion at EXPO Milan 2015 is not a
novelty, considering that from the papacies of Pius IX to Benedict
XVI the Holy See has taken part in international exhibitions to
demonstrate the Church's desire to make her voice heard and to offer
her testimony regarding the delicate themes, relevant to the future,
that are from time to time proposed by the Expositions, especially in
recent decades. The cultural policy of the Holy See therefore remains
coherent in confirming the importance of being present and taking
part in debates on crucial matters regarding the ways in which we
inhabit our planet and safeguard the future”.
In particular, for EXPO 2015, the Holy
See intends to guide visitors' attention towards the symbolic
relevance of nourishment and the potential for the anthropological
development of the theme in all its breadth and complexity. The Holy
See Pavilion will take as its title two short Biblical phrases: 'Not
by bread alone' and 'Give us today our daily bread', which lead
towards a broad and full rather than a reductive view of human needs,
and to a concrete approach mindful of daily life, with its demands
and emergencies”.
Msgr. Domenico Pompili affirmed that
“the intention of EXPO 2015 is to imagine another form of food
justice, thereby providing the opportunity for world Countries to
share ideas on how to improve food security. Its purpose is also to
reconsider the role of science and research, crucial to the
development of risk management technology. In the meantime, it is
important to acknowledge the ongoing commitment of Italian churches
to ensuring food to those in need. The participation of the Italian
Episcopal Conference, alongside the Holy See and the diocese of
Milan, thus represents a commitment that extends beyond the timeframe
of Milan's Universal Exhibition. Over 4,000,000 people in Italy (70
per cent of whom are Italian citizens) currently live below the
poverty line while the number of the most deprived requiring food aid
in Italy continues to rise. These people are supported in their
primary needs by almost 15,000 territorial charitable structures.
Through food parcels, soup kitchens or other more innovative forms of
intervention, such structures offer support to the most needy”.
Msgr. Luca Bressan commented that the
Holy See Pavilion will offer to help tourists and citizens encounter
“the mystical dimension, openness to God”. He added that the
method to be followed will be that of posing problems and making
suggestions to solve them, “used with success by Pope Francis, to
show that the Church is not a sour schoolmistress but rather a sister
who shares our path with lucidity and a vision of the future, a
devoted mother able to show the ways and the resources of the
future”. On 18 May, the Church's presence at Expo Milan 2015 will
be inaugurated with a show demonstrating that the relationship with
food is the place in which man's lack of harmony with Creation and
with other human beings is made most tangible; “where, more than
any other place, the throwaway culture is most glaringly evident”.
The feast day of Corpus Christi will be
celebrated during Expo Milan 2015, offering an opportunity to show to
the world that “the nourishment and future of man and of Creation
are protected and generated by this bread that is, in reality, the
body and blood of Jesus Christ, Who died for us and rose again, God's
love made flesh. … We will be able to show how, in Jesus Christ,
God makes us able to be in solidarity with all these hungers”. Expo
will also serve to highlight that Christians cannot fail to be
environmentally aware, since the consequences of consumerism and
wastefulness that obscure the original role linked to food and the
act of nourishing are clearly visible in “emergencies such as the
waste of resources and the enormous inequalities in their
distribution, … and in the phenomenon of pollution and the
unchecked exploitation of the planet's resources”. All this “is
contrary to the Creator's original plan and is the sign of a still
very immature way of undertaking our task of inhabiting the planet
like a garden able to nourish everyone”. Therefore, in the streets
of Milan, in the abbeys that surround the city and in the “Sacri
Monti” of the Alps, the feast day of Creation, a traditional event
for Eastern Christians, will be celebrated and will become for the
visitors of Expo Milan 2015 a form of “sentinel” for nature.
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