Taizé: New Year's Day meeting of European youth postponed to December 2021 - On Wednesday 12 August 2020 it was announced that the "Pilgrimage of Trust on Earth" of European youth would be held in Turin between Christmas 2021 and New Year's Day 2022. Over these days of pandemic, the promoters of the meeting have kept in touch and continued to exchange views with each other and the Taizé community, in the hope of getting the pilgrimage organised by December 2020. Now they have all agreed to postpone the event. The New Year's Day event is one of those initiatives that have come about within the framework of Turin's ecumenical commitment. The first invitation was made in 2017 and signed by the leaders of several Churches (Waldensian, Baptist, Rumanian Orthodox, Evangelical Lutheran, Adventist) together with archbishop Cesare Nosiglia and the heads of the ecumenical commissions of the Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Churches, the Secretariat of Ecumenical Activities and young people of Taizé related groups. The uncertainty on the progress of the pandemic now and over the next few months is an important element, but not the only one. Another factor that weighs on the decision is the need to ensure that the youth pilgrimage is held in safe and serene conditions for everyone, right because it will be a meeting with the whole city and its territory. Young people will be hosted by families in Turin and Piedmont, they will visit our museums, meet people and communities of the whole Turin area. Their reflection and prayer meetings as well as the moments of contemplation spent before the Shroud - by those who will wish - will become part of the life of the entire city. Anyway, time has not at all been wasted so far: contacts and commitments have been made in view of the pilgrimage, hosting facilities and premises have been found and the complex logistic machine requiring the reception of 20,000 people in a few days has started to be studied. The Christian communities involved, in collaboration with the City of Turin and the Piedmont Region, continue on the preparation path, which entails organizing the reception and preparing the pilgrimage spiritually and culturally. The Pastoral Care of Youth remains the reference point of this path. Further information can be found on www.upgtorino.it, www.sindone.org, www.taizetorino.it (Turin Diocese, August 12, 2020)

Maria Elisabetta Patrizi was born in Rome on March 25, 1941, the last of the four children of Bernardo Patrizi and Claudia Cavazzi della Somaglia. At six years of age she gave herself completely to Mary and asked her to be her Mother! She graduated in journalism from the “Pro Deo” in Rome. She was able to enter the Carmel of St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, in Careggi (Florence) when she was 25. After 8 years of cloistered life living a very intense contemplative life, the Lord called her «to evangelize in a new way». Following the order of Card. Mario Nasalli Rocca, «in obedience to Holy Roman Church», she left Carmel, always maintaining an intense prayer life... In 1975 she began to collaborate with Msgr. Giulio Ricci, renowned researcher of the Shroud. In 1976 they founded together the “Centro Romano di Sindonologia” [= “The Roman Center of Shroud studies”] and the “Catechisti della Passione” [= “Catechists of the Passion”], with the approval and encouragement of the Cardinal Vicar Ugo Poletti. Very soon after, they organized classes and exhibits in various parts of the world and the Shroud Center in Milwaukee, WI in the USA. She began a publishing house, “Cuore di Cristo” [= “Heart of Christ”] in Rome and then in 1982 she received a call from God to follow in the footsteps of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe and St. Therese of the Child Jesus. In 1983 the first sisters of a future religious institute began living together. This mustard seed inspired an ecclesial family: “Franciscan Family of Mary Immaculate” erected in 2017. Maria Elisabetta, after a very long autoimmune disease of demyelination and complications with vascular ulcers in the lower limbs, breathed her last breath on Sunday July 12, 2020 at 3:00pm. (Her spiritual children, July 14, 2020)

On March 28 Piero Vercelli returned to the Father. Born in Chieri (Turin) in 1939, proven textile expert, business owner and scholar of the Shroud, on  October 8, 1997 he had examined the remaining Shroud fabric (the Reserve) preserved in the Turin Curia and part of the strip cut on  April 21, 1988 for C14 test. He established the textile characteristics of it that allowed him to reconstruct and produce a Shroud-like fabric. He presented the result and the technical data at the Turin Symposium of March 2-5, 2000 and in a detailed report at the Paris International Congress of April 25-26, 2002. In 2010 he published "La Sindone nella sua struttura tessile" (The Shroud in its textile structure), Ed. Effatà. He collaborated with many sindonologists in various studies on this subject. (Aldo Guerreschi, March 31, 2020)