Books, an invitation to read: from the migration issue, to the school, to the culture of welcoming migrants

ROME – The migration issue and the culture of hospitality are at the center of the volumes “Humanitarian Corridors, a response to a global crisis” by Roberto Morozzo della Rocca; “The Great Opportunity. Journey to a Europe that is not afraid“, by Mario Marazziti, and the very recent “Welcome“, a dialogue between Lucio Caracciolo and Andrea Riccardi. “W the school“, is instead a volume that gives an account of the Sant’Egidio program to combat early school leaving. Another volume, “The ascents of the heart“, reports instead the meditations on the psalms of the Orthodox bishop Paul Yazigi, kidnapped in Syria 10 years ago. All trace of him has been lost, but his voice and his spirituality still resonate today in the pages of this book.

The book by Mario Marazziti. The essay puts forward concrete proposals for national and European policies so that migrants and refugees, from being a problem, can become a great opportunity. “There is a great need for Europe – reads the book description – where there are deposits of humanity and beauty, art and life that become even more precious assets in times of uncertainty”. This is where Mario Marazziti takes us, on an unusual journey through Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Andorra to discover that, somewhere, the future is already a work in progress. “If you resist fear, if you leave the doors of your home and of your mind open – it continues – discovery is the opposite of what you fear: you find your roots, your own history and that of the places; you value the existing but unused culture and human resources; European humanism is reborn, does not wither”.

A travel notebook, a “philosophical” reportage. It is among ordinary people, who experience extraordinary things, within everyone’s reach thanks to a writing that shows (and tastes) democracy and art, even the art of living. An antidote to narratives that prevent us from recognizing the resemblance to ourselves in the other. Thus it turns out that open doors stay standing better without the need for walls, when fears are broken down together and one builds on curiosity and differences. A journey that also passes through the welcome born around the humanitarian corridors promoted by Community of Sant’Egidio together with the local communities and the Churches, revealing a few little secrets for not getting old, for breaking away from urban loneliness, in creative solidarity. At the end of this long journey, Marazziti puts forward concrete proposals for national and European policies so that migrants and refugees, from being a problem, can become a great opportunity.