TheMeeting for Friendship Amongst Peoples (Italian:Meeting per l'amicizia fra i popoli), more commonly known as theRimini Meeting (Italian:Meeting di Rimini), is an annual layCatholic festival held every year inRimini,Italy, in the last week of August.
Inaugurated in 1980, the Meeting is the flagship event ofCommunion and Liberation, an internationalassociation of the faithful.[1][2] It is a significant event in domestic politics, attracting high-profile guest speakers, and receives notable coverage in the Italian press.[3][4]
The Rimini Meeting is held annually in the last week of August atRimini Fiera. The weeklong festival includes talks, debates, workshops, exhibitions, sporting, musical and literary events, and other sessions.[5][6] Each edition revolves around a theme that is chosen to inspire open reflection and dialogue.[7]
In 2022, the Rimini Meeting attracted 80,000 visitors, with a further 720,000 online attendees.[8]
The first edition of the Rimini Meeting took place in 1980, at the site of the old Rimini Fiera. The Meeting moved to the new Rimini Fiera after its completion in 2001.[9]
In March 2008, the Meeting for Friendship Amongst Peoples Association, which was constituted in December 1980 to organise the Meeting,[10] became a foundation.[11] Over 3,000 volunteers work during the Meeting to stage, operate, and dismantle it.[6][12]
In previous years, national television channels, including the public broadcasterRAI, have broadcast some sessions of the Rimini Meeting,[19] including the Sunday Mass onRai 1, RAI's flagship television channel.[5]
In December 2012, the public prosecutor's office in Rimini charged the general manager, lead administrator and an account of the Meeting for Friendship Amongst Peoples Foundation withfraud,[20][21] and seized one million euros from the foundation.[20] An investigation by theGuardia di Finanza found that the foundation had presented false loss-making balance sheets to obtain 310,000 euros of public funding for the 2009 and 2010 editions of the Rimini Meeting:[20][21][22] such funds can only be disbursed to organisations not making profits.[20] The public agencies involved includedEmilia-Romagna's regional council, Rimini's tourist marketing agency, the local Chamber of Commerce, and theMinistry of Culture.[20][21][22] The group was acquitted in March 2016.[21]
^abMaria De Luca, Davide (19 August 2012)."Che cos'è Comunione e Liberazione" [What is Communion and Liberation?].Il Post (in Italian). Retrieved24 June 2023.
