Palestine
The international and interreligious meeting “Carta di Leuca” brought together, from 10 to 14 August in Santa Maria di Leuca (Lecce), young people from different Mediterranean countries around the theme “Mediterranean of Peace for a World at Peace”. The meeting concluded at dawn on 14 August with the signing of the Carta di Leuca for Peace, in the presence of Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa.
Leuca is a geographical boundary, but it can also become an image capable of describing our time: before the Mediterranean, we can choose whether to see a frontier or a bridge.
Santa Maria di Leuca was once again the place where this choice became a concrete experience.
Carta di Leuca 2026, now in its eleventh edition, brought together young people from different parts of Italy, alongside youth arriving from Cyprus and Jerusalem, around a common desire: building peace.
The theme chosen for this edition was «Mediterranean of Peace for a world in Peace». A title that, in a Mediterranean marked by wars, divisions, and wounds, sounds both as a challenge and as a promise.
A journey of encounter and formation
Carta di Leuca is an experience of encounter; it is an endeavor to place diverse young people side by side, so that they may get to know one another, listen, and discover that what unites them is far greater than what divides them.
The young participants experienced moments of dialogue and formation, reflecting on the wounds within relationships, on differences, on hospitality, and on the necessity of preserving memory to build a different future. The path was designed as a journey where meeting the other was not an incidental element, but the very core of the experience.
The testimony of Jerusalem and the meeting with Pizzaballa
The presence of youth from Jerusalem and Cyprus gave the gathering a profound intensity. Jerusalem, in particular, was not merely a place mentioned in speeches; it reached Leuca through the faces and stories of the young people who live in that land, bringing the hopes and wounds of a territory where the word peace takes on an urgent meaning.
During this journey, the presence of Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, stood out. He met with the young people not only as a representative of the Church of Jerusalem, but as a man who bears the complexity and suffering of the Holy Land in his daily life.
His encounter with the youth gave substance to the reflections developed over the preceding days.
The question of peace could no longer remain theoretical: it was placed before the eyes of someone who lives the daily toil of dialogue and coexistence, making the meeting with Pizzaballa one of the most intense moments of Carta di Leuca.
From Alessano to Leuca: in the footsteps of Don Tonino Bello
In Leuca, however, every path towards peace inevitably leads to Alessano, to the tomb of Don Tonino Bello; his legacy runs through Carta di Leuca as a question addressed to the present. Don Tonino taught people to view peace as a responsibility that begins within relationships and the capacity to welcome others.
In the night between August 13 and 14, the youth resumed their walk from Alessano, heading towards Leuca. Walking together in the night, after days of dialogue on peace, takes on symbolic value: peace is a journey.
It is not achieved by standing still, and it is not built alone: we set off together.
The experience culminated at dawn on August 14, when the walk reached the Basilica of Santa Maria di Leuca and the young participants gave voice to Carta di Leuca.
A responsibility for the future
«Carta di Leuca is not signed. It is told»: because telling means taking responsibility for what has been lived.
The Mediterranean can be depicted as a sea of conflicts, dramatic migrations, frontiers, and fears, but it can also be recognized for what it has been throughout history: a place of exchange, encounter, and cross-pollination among cultures and peoples.
Peace does not mean erasing differences; it means learning to live them without turning them into walls, and this is precisely where the experience of these youth gains unique value. Over those days, young people from diverse realities experienced firsthand what it means to be together, share a path, and listen to a story different from their own.
Carta di Leuca thus departs from Leuca with a question rather than a conclusion: what will we do, once back home, with what we have lived?
The answer cannot simply be left to the world leaders; peace needs the youth. It needs people capable of crossing differences without fear, building relationships rather than fueling oppositions.
This is why Carta di Leuca is vital: because it does not simply hand young people a message, it entrusts them with a responsibility. And as the sun rises over the Mediterranean, the youth of Carta di Leuca remind us that the sea can still be a bridge. A Mediterranean of peace for a world in peace.
Photo of the “Carta di Leuca” group
