Sant'Egidio Founder Tapped for Italian Government Post

(November 17, 2011) The founder of the Catholic lay Community of Sant'Egidio has been selected to form a part of Italy's new government. Andrea Riccardi was asked on Wednesday to be the Minister for International Cooperation and Integration Policies in new Prime Minister Mario Monti's administration. Sixty one year old Riccardi said he accepted Monti's summons with the hope of "helping in the process of national recovery." He said he believes that Italy needs unity. "The commitment for social cohesion, national integration and international cooperation are part of my culture and experience acquired over the years," Riccardi noted. "I am convinced they are crucial elements for a country to regain its strength and come through the crisis." The Community of Saint Egidio was born in 1968 in Rome and is made up of more than 70,000 persons in more than 70 countries actively involved above all in evangelization and in the service to one’s neighbour, especially the neediest. The different groups, spread in the entire world, are united by the same spirituality: prayer, spreading of the Gospel, solidarity with the poor, ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, commitment for peace and justice. The Community of Saint Egidio became famous to public opinion at the beginning of the nineties due to its work of intermediation in the process of peace after the civil war in Mozambique and for having organized international and interreligious meetings for Peace, the first of which was in 1986 with Pope John Paul II at Assisi.