A little over a month ago, Tíscar Espigares, the person who started the Sant'Egidio community in Madrid in 1988, emotionally attended a Eucharist of thanksgiving for the 50th anniversary of the movement, celebrated in the Almudena Cathedral by the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, Carlos Osoro.
They were accompanied by the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia; the Nuncio of His Holiness in Spain, Monsignor Renzo Fratini; Auxiliary Bishop José Cobo; the Nuncio of His Holiness in Spain, Monsignor Renzo Fratini; vicars and priests.
There were many lay people, families and children from the Peace Schools, the elderly, refugees, new Europeans, the Youth for Peace, and a multitude of friends and representatives of various institutions and other religions.
Espigares, as head of the movement in the Spanish capital, addressed everyone. We will continue to be "friends of God, of the poor and of peace," he said. "Friendship is a word of great value for Sant'Egidio and the bond that unites everyone with this community present in Madrid. Friendship with the poor has helped us to be both realists and dreamers. Realists because they make us see reality as it is, often with great harshness; but also dreamers because their pain pushes us every day to fight and dream so that the world may change".
Tíscar thanked in a special way Andrea Riccardi, founder of Sant'Egidio "for his great love for the Word of God, a love that he has always transmitted to us with great passion, and that has made it possible for this family of Sant'Egidio to grow here in Madrid".
The Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, Carlos Osoro, denounced in his homily that "the greatest scandal of this world" is "to remain impassive before the misery and injustice of millions of human beings, the aggressiveness, the violence, the destructive disqualifications, the wars, the experience of millions of men and women without work, without wages". And he thanked the Community of Sant'Egidio for combating these situations with works and words from the "radicalism of the following of Jesus Christ".
The Pope in Trastevere
But the highlight of the celebration of 50 years for the Community of Sant'Egidio, on a global scale, was the Pope's emotional visit to the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, of which the Cardinal of Madrid is the titular.
There, in March, the Holy Father addressed the Founder, the leaders and all those present in connection with the international movement: "You did not want to make this feast just a celebration of the past, but also and above all a joyful manifestation of responsibility for the future. This makes us think of the Gospel parable of the talents [...]. Each one of you, whatever your age, is also given at least one talent. In it is written the charism of this community, a charism that, when I came here in 2014, I summed up in these words: prayer, poor and peace. The three 'p's."
The Holy Father referred to the sowing of friendship: "By walking in this way you help to make compassion grow in the heart of society - which is the true revolution, that of compassion and tenderness - to make friendship grow instead of the ghosts of enmity and indifference".
Upon his arrival, Francis thanked everyone for the welcome, with special mention to Andrea Riccardi and Marco Impagliazzo: "I am happy to be here with you on the fiftieth anniversary of the Community of Sant'Egidio. From this Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, the heart of your daily prayer, I would like to embrace your communities scattered throughout the world. I greet you all, in particular Prof. Andrea Riccardi, who had the happy intuition of this path, and the President Prof. Marco Impagliazzo for the words of welcome".
The Pope was moved by the testimony of Jafar, a 15-year-old refugee who fled Syria with his mother and arrived in Italy from Lebanon in one of the humanitarian corridors promoted by the institution. Shrapnel from a bomb that fell in Damascus blinded his mother as she tried to protect her other young son.
With great force, the Vatican correspondents assure us, the Holy Father encouraged them to "continue to be close to the elderly, sometimes discarded, who are your friends. Continue to open new humanitarian corridors for refugees from war and hunger! The poor are your treasure!
Humanitarian corridors
One of the initiatives for which the Sant'Egidio movement is best known are, as the Pope recalled, the humanitarian corridors in aid of migrants and refugees. The Pope said during his visit to Trastevere: "For many people, especially the poor, new walls have been erected. Diversities are occasions of hostility and conflict. We still need to build a globalization of solidarity and of the spirit. The future of the global world is to live together: this ideal demands a commitment to build bridges, to keep dialogue open, to continue to meet".
He also referred to "the great fears in the face of the vast dimensions of globalization" and that fears "are often concentrated against those who are foreign, different from us, poor, as if they were an enemy".
These corridors have allowed in these years to legally transfer to Italy hundreds of refugees coming from countries in conflict, especially Syria. It is a project promoted by Sant'Egidio, the Federation of Evangelical Churches and the Valdese Church, which offers people fleeing their countries in conflict legal and safe ways to reach Europe, preventing them from getting into the hands of human traffickers.
Once in the Old Continent, they receive daily assistance, live in parishes, religious institutes, private apartments or with families, learn the language and customs, and begin a process of social and work integration in the host country.
The first agreement of these humanitarian corridors was signed in Italy in December 2015 and allowed until 2017 to bring to the transalpine country one thousand refugees. The pact was renewed with the Italian authorities to repeat this figure again until 2019.
Following Pope Francis, the Community of Sant'Egidio has assured over the years that "we cannot allow the Mediterranean Sea to become a wall, a wall of water that engulfs the lives of men, women and children", "nor a new cemetery of Europe", in the Pope's words.
To sum up, the reality of Sant'Egidio is not limited to the corridors. We must remember here the peace agreements in several countries (Mozambique is emblematic), and the maintenance of the spirit of Assisi - interreligious prayer meetings initiated by St. John Paul II -, the help to thousands of poor people in many places - Sant'Egidio is present in seventy countries -, the training programs for thousands of young people in nations and cities in crisis...
The poor are family
Initiatives around the world have multiplied. Tíscar Espigares, a young university student in 1988, now a biologist and professor of ecology in Alcalá, started out in Madrid with some friends "taking affection and friendship - because we had nothing - to the Pan Bendito neighborhood, where the Toledo road starts: there were many problems, drug addiction...". It was the first Peace School in the capital of Madrid.
Today, the service can be provided to thousands of people, as in Rome and in so many cities around the world, in the same spirit: "For us, the poor are family, they are not just bodies to clothe, to feed, they are people with the same needs we have, of affection, friendship, dignity, someone to call you by name. It is very important. And we would get together to pray. It was the School of Peace, which is the name we give to this service," he explains to Palabra in the vicinity of the church of Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas, in Madrid's Calle del 2 de Mayo. If you want to know more, go there.
