“Men and women who did not live for themselves”, “a scandal for the world of the twentieth century”, which, like this century, made the “save yourself” “its supreme law”. With these words, Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Comunità di Sant’Egidio, defined the martyrs of the XX century, as he greeted the Pope as he entered, today, the Basilica of Saint Bartholomew, the memorial of the “new martyrs”. “Such is still the world of our century”, went on Riccardi: “And unfortunately so many Christians are still killed in many parts of the world”. Then, in recalling 1968, the year the Community was founded, Riccardi said that back then “a vital urge drove the young generations to build a better world”, while nowadays “it has ebbed into a heavy withdrawal”. “We were looking for a new world, we understood that we had to renew ourselves and forever”, said Riccardi: “We have been spared the coldness of the ideologies of those years, the burning heat of living for oneself. We have been led along the way of love. Towards our neighbours. Especially the poorer ones, in Rome, then all over the world, with their pains, their diseases -AIDS-, their wars. The poor have given us so much”. “We are glad to be Christians and children of the Church!”, exclaimed the founder of S. Egidio to Benedict XVI: “We have discovered the joyous and responsible gift of a charisma”.
News by SIR