Paola from Sant'Egidio with our RCNY member Anubis
Sant'Egidio is a global community of lay Catholics, numbering perhaps 70,000 people in 73 countries. On the global stage, it is probably best known for having brokered the end to Mozambique's civil war; for its success at bringing free, high quality AIDS prevention and anti-retroviral services to sub-Saharan Africa; for its annual high-level interfaith prayer meetings in Assisi; and for its advocacy against the death penalty.
Highly visible as those efforts are, Sant'Egidio's roots are deep and broad in Rome, where this article focuses, in the somewhat Bohemian neighborhood of Trastevere, and in many other neighborhoods around the periphery of the city. In Rome, people know of the community, especially for its many forms of direct service, peacemaking efforts, its gift for friendship, its ecumenical focus and its evening common prayer services each night in two churches. The Roman members of Sant'Egidio organize evening prayer services, a soup kitchens, clothing shops and service guides for the homeless, ministries of presence and support to the disabled and the elderly and work with immigrants
Founded in 1968 by a public high school student named Andrea Riccardi during the early part of an era of intense political and social upheaval, it began as a small group of students who read the Bible together and engaged in very ordinary, small scale forms of service like tutoring poor young people in the migrant ghettos that had sprung up on the fringes of Rome. As many of the early generation recall it, their Gospel reading led them to seek alternatives both to Marxist, political ideologies that they saw leading nowhere, and to the Christian Democratic movement that unhelpfully interwove church and state. They prayed together regularly and demonstrated a gift for friendship that was open and seemingly contagious. Sant'Egidio continues to build up its ranks in Rome particularly through small groups of high school friends, primarily among students from middle class families. One member suggested that there are about 2,000 community members in the Roman high schools today.
Paolo explained to Rotarians present how she and her husband take great pride and joy and not only preparing delicious and nutritious meals for the people that come to them for help but also in creating wonderful and long-lasting friendships. We hope to be able to collaborate with Sant'Egidio in the near future!
