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30/08/1999 |
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THE SAINT�EGIDIO COMMUNITY |
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The Saint Egidio Community evokes an image of an amazingly resourceful group of dedicated people who are constantly working behind the scenes for peace in the worlds trouble spots, people who set aside daily hours in service to the poor and the needy, especially those on the fringes of society � the homeless, immigrants, the physically and mentally challenged, gypsies, outcasts. At the same time one imagines them hobnobbing with the select few who shape world policy � political leaders, diplomats and government officials, leaders of the world�s religions, including the Pope. One thinks of peace treaties that have been signed through their intercession, the warm atmosphere and respect for difference and pluralism that surrounds thirteen years of international, interreligious meetings organized by the Saint Egidio Community, modeled on the Assisi Interreligious Prayer for Peace invoked by Pope John Paul II in 1986. One thinks of the beauty and serenity of their daily community prayers and their steadfast belief in the power of prayer. Who are these people, and how did they come to be? �We are people with a dream who refuse to live for ourselves alone,� says Mario Marazziti, a leader of the Rome-based Community. The Saint Egidio people have kept faith to this dream since the formation of the group. Born as a Roman Catholic religious community after the Vatican II Ecumenical Council in 1968 during the years of student turmoil in the universities, they began their activity as a small group of young intellectuals seeking an alternative to political extremism and a return to moral and ethical values. Their statute, which includes clauses regarding service to the poor and dialogue with the world�s religion, was approved by the Vatican. The founder and first president is Andrea Riccardi, then a secondary school student and today a professor of the history of Christianity at Rome University. The group gathers daily for biblical mediations and prayers. Together with then parish priest and now monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, who is still the Community�s spiritual guide, they moved in to a centuries-old church in the heart of Rome�s picturesque Trastevere section, began to restore it, and started dedicating volunteer time to helping the poor. In there decades they grew from a handful of idealists to include 17,000 in twenty-five countries around the world. However, the Saint Egidio Community�s special significance lies not in numbers, but in the fame their works have brought them, their concrete contributions to networking through interreligious channels for peace, and their dedication to dissipating the loneliness and isolation of the needy to offer sustenance, dignity and warmth. �By taking on the problems of the poor, we began to take on the problems of entire nations � those from which they came,� says Mario Marazziti. For example, Saint Egidio volunteers working with poor people in Mozambique realized that without peace, their poverty could never be erased. So they went about establishing lines of communication between the government and the Renamo rebel forces. Above all, they tried to supply a friendly environment where peace negotiations could be nurtured. With the help of the Italian Foreign Ministry, Saint Egidio hosted representative leaders from both sides in Rome at intervals during the course of two years. Finally, after fourteen years of war, about one million deaths and two million exiles, on October 4, 1992, the Mozambique Peace Treaty was signed in the presence of the Saint Egidio mediators, numerous United Nations representatives and observers, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the President of the Republic of Mozambique and the President of the Renamo forces. In Algeria, Saint Egidio set up contacts with and among all non governmental democratic factions, an don January 13, 1995, hosted these leaders who signed the Rome Platform for Peace in Algeria, a document aimed at stopping torture and violence, respecting democratic procedures and liberating prisoners, among other things. It was a step forward, though unfortunately it did not permanently stop violence in Algeria. Don Matteo Zuppi, a priest working with Saint Egidio agrees that �The problems are enormous and still unsolved, but we must keep on trying. We cannot give up.� In Albania, Saint�Egidio presence dates back over a decade. As volunteers began working to solve the problems of poverty they realized how many people were disadvantaged simply because they didn�t have the money to buy eyeglasses. So they organized free eye examinations and distributed glasses. Interceding for the teaching of different religions in schools in a bid for democratic pluralism in Albania and Kosovo, Saint Egidio leaders became friendly with Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate Albanian who is formally still the president of Kosovo. Due to Monsignor Paglia�s intervention, Milosevic allowed Rugova to come to Rome during the NATO bombing of Belgrade. Responding to the Kosovo crisis, Saint Egidio volunteers, including fourteen doctors, worked at fourteen medical centers in Albania. The Saint Egidio Community has been nominated by religious and political leaders for the Nobel Prize for Peace. Recently it received awards from Buddhists and Jewish organizations. The humble and the mighty, the poor and the powerful are all equally at home at the Saint Egidio Community�s center in Rome. Presidents, former presidents, government figures, diplomats, and religious leaders of all the world�s major religions are regular guests. Visiting the needy and elderly, conducting a soup kitchen and a recreational center for physically and mentally challenged children, accompanying gypsy children to school from their camp homes to ensure their attendance, providing food and blankets for the homeless, especially in winter, organizing services for immigrants and a grand Christmas dinner for Rome�s poor � these are the activities to which Saint Egidio people dedicate their after-work hours. Then they gather for a daily prayer in their exquisite medieval church in Trastevere. But perhaps the most impressive results of Saint Egidio�s commitment to working for peace are those concerned with the interreligious meetings they organize. Inspired by Pope John Paul II�s 1986 call to Assisi to bring the leaders of the world�s religions for simultaneous, but separate prayer, respectful of their different identities, Saint Egidio decided to carryon the tradition. Since then, the Community has organized annual international interreligious meetings attendee by leaders of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and of other, native religions. Creating a warm and congenial atmosphere during public gatherings is a special art mastered by Saint Egidio people. A Saint Egidio volunteer is assigned to each delegate at the meetings that the Community organizes. The volunteer accompanies the delegate throughout the event. Friendships have sprung from these encounters, forging other friendships and significant developments regarding not only the leaders of different religions themselves, but all of their followers, as well as the nations they represent.
L. Palmieri Billigs
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