St Egidio's 43rd birthday

Fellowship, prayer and commitment to the poor. Those were the three guiding principles which inspired a small group of Rome high school students in the late 1960’s as political upheavals were sparking unrest across Europe and beyond.
Keen to put a Catholic perspective on this movement for change in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, these students formed a community focused on prayer, on living out the Gospel and on supporting the poorest, most marginalised people living on the streets or in the rundown suburbs, far from the ‘dolce vita’ for which the city was renowned at that time.
More than four decades on, those same founding principles remain at the heart of the St Egidio community today. Housed in an abandoned Carmelite convent in Trastevere which became a headquarters as the community began to grow, the organisation is now present in over 70 countries worldwide, with more than 60.000 members working to promote reconciliation, peace and a radically different approach to problems of poverty, homelessness, youth violence or crime control.
While the community has made a name for itself internationally, helping to bring warring parties together in countries like Mozambique, Ivory Coast or more recently Niger and Guinea Conakry, here in Rome the daily unsung work of proving a hot meal, a prison visit or just a kind word to those on the margins of society continues, as does the daily prayer service in St Maria in Trastevere, now attended by some 250.000 visitors each year.
So what is the secret of the community’s success in countries and cultures so very different from the mother house here in Rome? What have been the most significant developments and the moments of difficulty over recent decades? And what is it that still attracts young men and women to such a community life of prayer and service, just as those first high school students, led by Andrea Riccardi, came together to change the world almost half a century ago?
Luca Attanasio talks to Carlo Penza, in charge of public relations for St Egidio, and to representatives of the community from San Salvador, Malawi and South Africa....

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