Pandemic War Environment: thinking dreaming transforming
In the last two years, our lives, individually and collectively, have been disrupted by the succession of global threats, from pandemics to war, to the persistence of the environmental emergency. The biblical idea of the Great Flood struck our mind as a powerful analogy of an extreme threat of annihilation, just as the need to seize this time of crisis for an existential reflection and transformation has evoked in us the image of the Ark. , as an instrument of salvation, as a collective work of salvation. This interdisciplinary congress intends to weave a dialogue on three themes, the pandemic, the environmental crisis, the war, in search of an understanding of the complex reality we live in.
After an initial phase of disorientation, we felt we had to redefine the area of reflection of this congress, integrating the three great global crises of our time: pandemic, war, environment, aware of the common matrix of these themes. This congress was born from a need for reflection on the dialectics always present in the human beings, which includes good and evil, construction and destruction, life and death, with the clear and frightening perception of being at a turning point. Space will, therefore, be given to reflections on the three global aspects that define our time: the psychological and social consequences of the trauma of pandemic, the danger of the global warming on the ecosystem, the nuclear threat of a third world war. The scientific-organizing committee has decided to organize the congress by dividing it into three parts:
– an exchange among experts from different disciplines, in the hope that integrated perspectives might emerge to understand the complex reality we are experiencing;
– a space dedicated to clinical issues and to dialogues among speakers and study groups that researched on specific issues concerning the pandemic crisis;
– a space for international dialogue through a round table, in which to reflect together on the world scenario.
The choice of the location of the Conference, the city of Assisi, was suggested by our shared need to return to feel part of the Creation, a
sentiment so powerfully expressed in the Franciscan message. It is a place, at the same time outer and inner, where this intimate connection can be intensely perceived.
