The Holy Father Benedict XVI received today in audience, at the eve of the feast of St. Egidio, prof.  Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio, the president Marco Impagliazzo and H. E. Mgr. Vincenzo Paglia, Bishop of Terni-Narni-Amelia, in sight of the Interfaith Meeting of Prayer for Peace that will be held in Krakow (Poland) from 6 to 8 September and that has for title:  "The spirit of Assisi in Krakow".  

During the audience were addresseded also the issues of poverty in the world and of the treatment ofHIV/AIDS in Africa, to whuch the Community of Sant'Egidio gives a great contribution with the program DREAM - 73,000 the patients in care in ten African countries - that the pope had way to know directly on the occasion of his recent journey in Cameroon. 

Africa was mentioned also for the next Assembly of the African Synod. 

The meeting of religions in Krakow and the pilgrimage of the religious heads to Auschwitz on the occasion of the seventy years from the beginning of the Second World War, favored a series of exchanges on subjects of the ecumenical and interfaith conversation.