Dear friends, dear members of SIESC – EFCT,
69th SIESC Meeting in Naples from 14th to 18th/19th July, 2025
From 14 to 18/19 July, 2025 we will have the opportunity to meet in Italy, in Naples, a Mediterranean city.
The topic of the meeting is one that the AIDU board proposed to the SIESC Board at Paris last September, which identified it as one of the major global problems, affecting not only teachers, as educators, but pupils and parents as part of the new challenges for European teachers: the ecological transition, but a gentle, non-traumatic transition. It is the primary task of schools to bring up the younger generations with a different approach to life and creation. The title will be:
Building the future: School, the path to a gentle ecological transition
The ecological emergency has become an issue that cannot be postponed or evaded. One thing is certain: the new generations will have to be educated to manage this transition in a gentle and non-traumatic way. The school that educates the new generations is the natural place for this change, and teachers must be well aware and oriented to their task.
Outdated models of interpretation must be reshaped and innovative proposals undertaken that Pope Francis' encyclical “Laudato sì” asks of everyone, but particularly of Catholics, in order to care for the common home and give future generations a chance.
Our speakers:
Carmela Agodi, Sociologist at the University of Naples-Federico II. Her main areas of research are sociological theory and methodology of social research, Science &Technology Studies, and education systems. She was International Consulting Editor of the American Journal of Sociology, co-editor of the series ‘Studies in European Sociology’. She will speak from an anthropological and sociological perspective on ecological transition.
Mauro Bossi SJ studied theology in Paris and Rome. Since 2018 he has been on the editorial staff of the Italian journal “Aggiornamenti sociali”. In 2023 he was appointed Delegate for Ecology of the Euro-Mediterranean Province of the Society of Jesus. He will speak on the general and geopolitical aspect of the ecological transition.
Gael Giraud SJ founded and directed the Environmental Justice Programme at Georgetown University in Washington, where he taught political economy. A research director at CNRS, he is a member of the Centre d'Economie at the Sorbonne and LabExReFi at the Ecole d'Economie in Paris. He was Chief Economist at the Agence Française de Développement. He will speak about the reshaping of the economy from the perspective of the commons and spaces for a more just society.
Jean-Paul Hernandez SJ studied philosophy in Padua, and theology in Naples and Frankfurt. He is currently Director of the ‘School of Higher Education in Art and Theology’ of the Theological Faculty of Naples and lecturer at the Gregorian University in Rome. He is the founder of the international network ‘PIETRE VIVE’ born from an experience of evangelisation through art. He will lead participants on a journey of art and religiosity in the extraordinary wealth of sacred art in Naples.
Speakers will include the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples, Domenico Battaglia, Bishop Mariano Crociata, former CCEE president, and Bishop Fabio Fabene, Congregation of Saints and AIDU ecclesiastical consultant.
On the 3 afternoons we will have the opportunity to visit the artistic sites of Naples, with Fr Hernandez sj, the natural beauty of Naples and the excavations of Pompeii.
The final excursion will take us to Capri.
We look forward to meeting you brothers and sisters in Christ in our beautiful Naples.
You are cordially invited on behalf of SIESC, AIDU and the organising team.
Alin Tat Alfonso Barbarisi
President of SIESC President of AIDU
Ways to the location of the meeting
The city of Naples has an international airport, a high-speed railway, as well as wide motorways connecting it with the whole of Europe and a large passenger port.
The building that hosts us can be reached from two different metro stops: Mergellina Line 2 and Arco Mirelli Line 6.
To reach the location of the meeting: those arriving at the airport take the ALI-BUS (5 Euro) to the Central Station and from there the Metro Line 2 (1.70 Euro) and get off at the ‘Mergellina’ station. There is then a slightly uphill walk of about 700 metres. Those coming by train only take Metro Line 2.