segreteria@villaaurora.it +39-055-412014 
The Villa Aurora Meeting, the annual event that brings different visions of the world and the future into dialogue, returns again this year. From August 24-30, 2025, the monumental park of Villa Aurora in Florence will welcome scholars, religious representatives, institutions and citizens for a week of open, passionate and profound discussion.
The title of this edition , “God in Our Time,” opens to a reflection as topical as it is necessary: is God still a recognizable voice in our present? In a world beset by global crises, social fragmentation and a search for meaning, the theme of God’s presence (or absence) returns forcefully to public debate, albeit often in unexpected or misrepresented forms.
“There was a time when secularization theory predicted God’s disappearance from the public scene; philosophies of suspicion and Freudian thought downgraded religion to an illusion destined to dissolve in modernity; things did not turn out that way, and later Gilles Kepel wrote the beautiful essay the “revenge of God,” and Peter Berger had to reconsider himself, too, noting how modernity still counted many altars.
Today, God enjoys a certain notoriety in public discourse, and yet, He often remains hidden if not even misrepresented. In the Bible He reveals Himself in an anonymous traveler on the road to Emmaus, in a gentle whisper or even in a talking donkey or a dense cloud. This is why we wonder how He hides and reveals Himself in our time and where He allows Himself to be sought and found: of this mystery, of God’s unmanifest presence in our world we would like to dialogue with you.”
The Villa Aurora Meeting is a space for dialogue that does not give up a theological vision of the world and history. In interdisciplinary thematic panels, ethical, political and ecological issues are addressed each year through the confrontation of secular, religious and academic perspectives, without excluding personal and spiritual experience.
In a time that often struggles to combine spirituality and contemporaneity, we want to ask ourselves together: Where is God manifested today? And how can we recognize Him in our daily living, amidst the challenges of our time?
We invite you to attend, listen, ask questions, bring your point of view.
For more information and to see previous editions, visit the page dedicated to Villa Aurora Meeting:
villaaurora.it/villaaurorameeting
