Sant’Egidio: Italian icon of peace, love and coexistence

Rabab El-Hakim

In the heart of Italy, within the Sant’Egidio Foundation, religious leaders are accustomed to embracing the banners of peace, love, tolerance and coexistence, and calling upon the peoples of the world to uphold the values of common dialogue, renounce sectarianism and violence and unite to meet the common challenges facing all.

In this context, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayyeb met Tuesday Italian President Sergio Matarella at the Italian Presidential Palace in Rome, during his visit to Italy, which ended on Thursday as part of an external tour.
During the tour, Sheikh el-Tayyeb was exerting efforts to establish dialogue between followers of religions to face all the challenges, defuse tensions, achieve peace in societies, confront the phenomenon of Islamophobia, and work to correct the image of Islam after being distorted by extremist groups and extremists.

During his meeting with the Italian president, Al-Azhar Grand Imam said that Italy has helped build a bridge between South Europe and Egypt over the past years. He stressed the importance of joint work between religious institutions and their leaders to promote world peace.

The Grand Imam also participated in the “Religions, Culture and Dialogue” conference organized by the “Sant’Egidio” Society in Bologna, northern Italy, in the presence of a number of prominent religious and cultural figures in the world.

According to the statement issued by the Sant’Egidio Foundation, its President, Marco Impalatso, explained that the goal of the Assembly is to build dialogue between different religions, and break the dividing walls not only between European and African countries, but between European countries and one other as well.

Dr. Andrea Trentini, a specialist in Arab literature and Islamic studies and one of the leading officials of the Sant’Egidio Foundation, stressed that “the great and direct integration of a large institution like Al-Azhar and its great imam, Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb, as one of the most important Sunni leaders, is a positive thing to represent an Islamic-Christian dialogue.

In his speech at the Conference on Religions, Culture and Dialogue, Trentini said dialogue between two civilizations and two worlds must rediscover a common language of understanding to solve the problem of the other, which represents the dilemma of the 21st century.

Sant’Egidio: Mediating for peace

Founded in 1968, the Sant’Egidio Foundation is an international Catholic organization founded by a group of high school students. Its main activities are providing humanitarian assistance to achieve peace, mediate international disputes and create dialogue between countries and continents of the world, according to its website.

Earlier, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, praised the work of the Sant’Egidio Foundation, especially that it had adopted a method contrary to existing policies. Although it was a non-governmental body, it was in line with the official work of Governments and intergovernmental organizations and this is what distinguished its work from others.

St. Egidio’s way of achieving peace between nations depends on the development of personal relationships, understanding of the culture of warring sides, creating an atmosphere of close collaboration between factions and helping the parties to get close to each other.

The Sant’Egidio officials have strong relations with leaders of different faiths. These relations are the result of 20 years of constant dialogue between religious leaders, as well as the annual International Meeting on Prayer for Peace, attended by more than 400 leaders religious.

“The Society of St. Egidio has many branches in the countries of the world, and it has a branch in Cairo in the area of Fajalah. This association belongs to the Vatican and is a non-governmental organization,” says thinker Kamal Zakher.

He added that the association seeks to achieve peace among nations, establish dialogue between religions and dissolve differences between human beings.

It, he also said, believes that the service of peace is linked to and stems from relations and friendships that strengthen the bonds of permanent and continuous dialogue between religious leaders. This has been the practice of the Assembly since the eighties of the last century, Zakher said.