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1999 - Address by Mr Jean Foyer |
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| Vice-President of the International Jury | |
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The President of the Jury of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize, Dr Henry Kissinger, had planned to be with us this evening to present the Prize in person to the Community of Sant'Egidio. He has been detained today by inescapable obligations in another part of Europe. He has left me, as his Vice-President and former colleague of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, to set out the reasons for the Jury's decision to award the 1999 Prize to the Community of Sant'Egidio, and has asked me to present his apologies and to say how sorry he is not to be here tonight. The story that I am briefly going to tell began in 1968. At that time, a proportion of the world's young people were seized with a frenzy of change which, in most cases, took the form of a challenge to authority. Some were even driven by it – and I borrow the words from Professor Riccardi – to the folly of terrorist revolution and to the delusions of palingenesis. In Rome, a number of secondary school pupils gathered in Trastevere. They were no less eager for change than their contemporaries. They thought that before seeking to change the world, they should change themselves. Following on from the Second Vatican Council, they believed that the most authentic of changes would be to make a reality of Christianity. They agreed to meet in the evenings to pray together. They set themselves the task of evangelisation in the sense of new evangelisation as Pope John-Paul II would later call it, and also, and above all, the task of serving the poor. In this way a community came into being which took the name of the patron saint of the church in which its members gathered. This was the Community of Sant'Egidio. The Community of Sant'Egidio was set up under Italian law as a non-profit-making association, recognized by the Holy See as an association of Catholic lay people, and is not a religious community. It does not come under any ecclesiastical authority and its members do not take any vows. They continue their family life and their work, but as volunteers they carry out the Community's missions and contribute money to it. In addition, the Community chose to owe no allegiance to any political parties – and how wise it was in its choice. It has always laid emphasis on religious inspiration, which alone infuses its view of the situations and problems it encounters. In its early days, the Community concerned itself with children experiencing serious social deprivation, children from shanty towns around Rome. Since then it has really grown and spread. It is now present in more than 30 countries and has 20,000 members. Its local services extend their care to street children and to the old, to the homeless, to prisoners, to those with AIDS, to gypsies, to the disabled and the mentally handicapped, to immigrants and to refugees. The fundamental characteristic of this action is the spirit in which it is carried out. The Community has never sought to be a simply functional, aid-giving service to the poor; it has never sought to be just a provider of services and assistance. What it expresses, and what it works to build up by this service and this help, is friendship. I think that this word "friendship" is, for the Community, the modern translation of the Greek word agapê, praised in the First Letter to the Corinthians. Had they remained local, the actions, admirable in so many respects, supported by the Community of Sant'Egidio would not have counted among those that it is the purpose of the Houphouët-Boigny Prize to acknowledge. In recent years, however, Sant'Egidio's actions have taken on a worldwide dimension. It had already, with great conviction, supported and worked for dialogue among religions. It was called upon later to intervene to re-establish peace at a time when, as its President remarked, the end of empires, or at least the end of one of the two major powers, had, unhappily, "democratised" war. By engaging in peace initiatives and in the re-establishment of peace, the Community was not departing from its original purpose. It was part of the same culture of reconciliation, peace and solidarity. As its President again wrote: "The same fidelity towards the poor could lead to being concerned with whole nations of poor people and to constructing, like simple workmen, the end of war, the mother of all poverty. In that sense, there is no 'diplomatic' Sant'Egidio". In Mozambique, the mediation of international organizations and States was powerless to end a civil war that had lasted for 15 years had caused 1 million deaths and had led to a total of 2 million exiles. After two years of efforts, peace – and a peace that has proved lasting – was made in the Community's headquarters in Rome, in a former monastery. Other actions have been undertaken over the years. Not all are finished. The Community has made its good offices available in Albania and Burundi, in Lebanon and Somalia, in Sudan and Guatemala, in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau and even in Algeria and Kosovo. Sant'Egidio has worked for the establishment of peace in the poorest parts of the Third World. Its work on the international scene has also taken the form of many projects to provide humanitarian aid and development assistance, especially in the fields of health and education. Its first efforts at re-establishing peace were greeted with scepticism by the outside world. The members of the Community were regarded as idealists and dreamers and its actions were described as amateur diplomacy. Well, the idealism succeeded, and those who spoke of amateurs did not know that they had in fact hit the nail on the head if the word is taken, not as the opposite of "professional" as in sport, but in its etymological sense from the Latin amator. Sant'Egidio's diplomacy is in fact not determined by interest or by vanity but by the love of peace, love of the poor and love for one's neighbour. And that it is why it succeeded. Its achievements are the fruit of patience which is never discouraged. Prudence ordains that one should not rest content with the signing of agreements but should establish the conditions, the procedures and the institutions necessary for an agreement to be carried out and for the obligations it lays down to be fulfilled. The Community of Sant'Egidio has shown that belligerents cannot be reconciled while in the public eye and under the media spotlight, but that reconciliation is achieved discreetly. Unlike States, Sant'Egidio has no aircraft-carriers and, unlike international organizations, it cannot threaten embargoes or blockades. Its logistics are to be found in prayer and its force – if I dare use the word – lies in conviction and reason applied in a spirit of fellowship. "The power of the human approach, the ability to inspire trust. " Sant'Egidio does not seek publicity or honour. It is quite often happy with the modest title of "facilitator", a neologism that it coined, although its intervention is breathing new life into the procedure of mediation. Sant'Egidio is setting an extraordinary example for the world of today. The Community is showing what can be achieved by the religious conviction and faith of which some would like to eradicate even the memory in the history of old Europe. That is where the driving force of its action and the condition of its success reside. It was therefore perfectly fitting that the Community of Sant'Egidio should be awarded the 1999 Félix Houphouët-Boigny Prize. In putting forward this Community to UNESCO as a candidate, the Jury felt that it was responding very precisely to the wishes of the illustrious African statesman by whose name the Prize is known. Much more than awarding a prize to the Community of Sant'Egidio, the Jury wanted to acknowledge its action and point to it as an example to be dwelt on and imitated. We feel indeed that the Community does not hope for or expect any reward in this world. Another, higher reward has already been promised to it in the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." |
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