The Community of Sant'Egidio greets the three years of the pontificate of Pope Francis as a gift for the Church and for the world. "In a time when too many walls between people have been built - president Marco Impagliazzo said - Francis has been a bridge builder in his daily ministry and in the church and international scenarios, as demonstrated by the new relationships that have opened up between Cuba and the United States and the historic meeting with Russian Patriarch Kirill."
"He is a Pope - underlined Impagliazzo - that, reading the reality starting from the suburbs, made himself the voice of the poor and showed everyone the way to bridge the gaps and heal the wounds of our society, not least the environment. He not surprisingly chose to open the first Holy Door of the Jubilee of Mercy in Bangui, the capital of war- torn Central Africa. Francis was able to give a new missionary impetus to the Church by proposing to live the joy of the Gospel: an "outgoing" force, able to offer the world a new humanism in years crossed by so many conflicts and by widespread violence that affects mainly the weakest".