“No peace without justice; no justice without forgiveness” said Pope John Paul II in his New Year message. The call was repeated a few weeks later in the extraordinary meeting of religious leaders in Assisi, “No more war in the name of religion.” The document signed by the representatives of the world religions expressed the aspirations of billions of people. Yet, in a time of war (or better wars, considering the many that have been around for so long albeit far from American shores) we wonder about the meaning of this insistence. While some would look for victory first and are convinced that peace is a product of a clear victory over evil, the pope calls us to transcend the political calculations of those who feel compelled to respond violently and invites us to reconsider the power of prayer, of forgiveness, and of mercy.

POWER IS
EVERYWHERE

This power is everywhere around us, in our hearts, in the lives of many, lay people and clerics. This power is in the hands of all believers. Leaders do not hold it alone: it is the power of all, of all men and women of good will. Anyone can claim this power, not for oneself but for others, especially the poor, the victims of so much human violence. We should all claim it for the ones who are still caught in wars, who still die because of human violence, who still suffer because of human oppression. There are too many. The power of prayer allows us to keep together what in the world is divided by violence.
Those of us living in the rich north frequently forget. Suffering is far away, difficult to conceptualize, difficult to relate to. The divide between the affluent and comfortable north and the poor areas of the world is striking. That divide is not only growing in economic terms; it is greater so when we think of those who actually live in the midst of conflict.
This divide becomes a sacred space for the church, mother of the poor, refuge of those who suffer. This divide is as deep and meaningful as the earthquake at the time of Golgotha. It is a sacred space made so by the suffering of so many. It is a space that we Christians share with all who suffer and with all who care. Many of these fellow human beings are of different religions or with no religious belief at all.
In this space encounters—once impossible to imagine—take place as in Assisi where representatives of all religious traditions were invited by Pope John Paul II to pray for peace. That meeting was made possible by a shared concern for those who suffer, for the victims, for the human suffering that human violence still provokes.
What happened in Assisi was unheard of. Popes have not been accustomed to call meetings like this for prayer. In past centuries, popes sometimes called for war. It has happened only once before that a pope called an assembly of religious leaders to pray for peace together. It was the same pope, John Paul II, who issued the call in 1986. It was before the end of communism, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, before the end of the millennium, before September 11.
This pope has shown an extraordinary foresight. He has single-handedly transformed the way Catholics see and relate to others. True, Vatican II had already prepared the way. True, the documents of the council already had stated the course, but for many, especially in Europe, the very idea that it was possible to convene a prayer for peace such as the one the pope called for was absolutely astonishing. It was new. It was innovative. It was certainly a different way to listen to the Word and “act on it” (Mt. 7, 24). It was part of that experience of the ecclesia semper reformanda of which the council spoke so meaningfully.

INNOVATION
CALLING FOR
ACCEPTANCE

It was an innovation that called for acceptance, understanding, and care. When the Community of Sant’Egidio decided to participate and support that effort of the pope we were keenly aware of the necessity to take this challenge seriously, to be committed to it in the years to come, to hold the holy space of a fragile encounter as a possibility of peace for all.
Born in the late sixties in Rome in a time of turbulent changes, the community has been a fellowship of small communities of lay people gathered together in prayer, service, and friendship. From the small group of high school students that Andrea Riccardi gathered on February 7, 1968 (in a parish close to the school they were all attending), the community has grown into a movement of thousands of members, with small communities on all continents.

THE FIRST DEED IS PRAYER

For all of them the first “deed” is prayer. While famous for its successful intervention that fostered peace in Mozambique, in fact the community was led to its role of offering hospitality and a neutral space for negotiation through its fidelity to prayer. A priest from Mozambique had prayed with the community while studying in Rome. After his return to Mozambique, he became the bishop of Beira and he realized the healing role that the Sant’ Egidio community could play for those seeking a solution to the violence in their country. As a result, from 1990 to 1992 delegations of the government of Mozambique and of the RENAMO guerrilla movement negotiated at Sant’Egidio.
The community has been deeply faithful to its fundamental belief that the roots of its actions are actually to be found in prayer, in the careful listening to the Word of God, in the silent availability to God’s will.
The historical interventions of the community (sometimes quite public, as in the cases of Kosovo and Burundi, other times almost silent, as in the case of years of work to reconcile and reconstruct Albania, or as in the case of the largest comprehensive anti-AIDS program in Southern Africa) are always an effort to read prayerfully the signs of the times in the light of the cross.
In Assisi the cross was present in the sufferings of the poor, in the pain of the victims. Christians gathered around these crosses praying together. Especially in 1986, the pope was one among the others and yet every one was grateful for the very possibility of a prayer that was not there before.
No one was asked to renounce any of the elements of truth revealed to them. There was no syncretism. There was a respectful welcome of all. Each was asked to pray in different locations at the same time and gather together in silence. That common silence was more eloquent than many speeches.
When we seek common ground we should help each other to let the presence of the Lord speak through us to the others, refraining from negativity and fear. The pope is leading the way. We can be together in this. In the United Sates there are thousands of prayer groups, small communities of faith, fellowships of different kinds that gather people in the presence of the Lord.

COMMUNION BRINGS
APPRECIATION

Shouldn’t we foster a communion that brings us closer in the appreciation of what the church should be today? The country is at war and many are rushing to justify a violent response that some see as “necessary.” Yet the pope himself is calling a day of prayer so open, so inclusive, so welcoming that it is difficult to imagine a stronger stand in favor of peace coming from the representatives of all major world religions.
Could we ignore this call? I do not think we should accept the massive silence that accompanied the media coverage of the event in this country. On the contrary we should underline the meaning of presences such as Cardinal Egan who was there with the pope and other Americans (among them Denton Lotz, the American leader of the World Baptist Alliance and many other Christian brothers and sisters). I dare to say that in seeking peace we must start from prayer, from the sacred ground given to us as a gift of the Spirit and not from a political construction that always fails to do full justice to the suffering, especially for the poor.

FASTING IN
SOLIDARITY

Before the prayer for peace Pope John Paul II called for a day of fasting. It was December and we were in the middle of the war in Afghanistan. We were given an opportunity to share the fasting that millions of Muslims were doing during the Holy Month of Ramadan. Again, it was unprecedented for a pope to call for such an act. It had simply never happened before. Yet, many of us, absorbed by other concerns and preoccupations, have missed the chance to stop and reflect.
History is changing fast and everything is moving at a pace that seems unbearable. The church itself is experimenting in the present time more than many dare to think. It may not be the experimentation that some would like to focus on, but the church is consistently integrating the teachings, the intuitions, the orientations of the ecumenical council into the historical challenges we presently face. To share these leaps of faith, this opening of hope, may lead us, all of us, Catholics and non-Catholics, into a very different human experience.
When Sant’Egidio started, now more that 34 years ago, it did not have a plan. It was just a group of students. Fewer than ten. All in high school. The oldest was 18. Younger members joined soon. Many of them were less than 15years old. They prayed together, served the poor together, and they lived a life of friendship. They took the gospel seriously and decided to “listen to those words and act on them.”
They were not the first. Soon they realized how many generations of Christians had preceded them in the faith; how long and rich was the tradition of a church that had preserved the gospel of Jesus.
When, five years after their unpretentious beginning, those young people found a priest who was willing to share with them and an unused church (property of the Italian state), they finally received their present name. In 1974 they became: The Community of Sant’Egidio. The small church in the heart of Trastevere became a center of daily prayer. Every night all those who could joined the evening prayer in an intense moment of encounter with the scripture, the presence of the Lord among us.
As a lay community, Sant’Egidio initiated forms of participation that were innovative. No vows, no formal promises, no public commitment yet a strong sense of stability arising from common daily prayer, a dedicated service to the poor expressed concretely in works of mercy, and joyful experience of friendship, this often forgotten and much misused evangelical word that is so meaningful in Jesus’ usage! (Gv. 15, 13)
Today the community is beginning to be present in the United States as well. The first small community was founded in New York in the aftermath of the successful conclusion of the Mozambique peace process. Then other communities started in Boston (Boston College, Harvard), Washington, DC, and Chicago, often in university settings. Made up of Americans who share “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted” (Gaudium et spes) the communities of Sant’Egidio feel deeply the call to participate in the present time with those who seek peace actively, forcefully, passionately. Seeking peace we start from prayer.

VIGIL FOR PEACE

Following the invitation of the pope, we held a vigil of prayer for peace at Columbia University in New York. It was at the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It was January 23, 2002, the night before Assisi. Scriptures were read and silence was shared with Catholic Workers, Franciscans, campus ministers and many who were with us in friendship.

US TRADITION OF WORK FOR PEACE

The United States has a long tradition of work for peace. For example, Dorothy Day’s witness is being welcomed and recognized by the church prominently now through the beatification process.
Yet, the country seems to need a pause, a reflective moment in which we will not hear the “many tongues,” but the word of the One who was crucified for the salvation of all.
Jesus forgave his persecutors because they “did not know” what they were doing. Too often we too are unable to know what we are doing and we need to start afresh not from our own strengths, not from our pride and certainty but from him, from his word and example, from his teaching and life, so that we may find the Way again, together.

Editor’s note:
Dr. Andrea Bartoli has been actively involved in conflict resolution since the early 1980s, first as a member of the Community of Sant’ Egidio, focusing on Mozambique, Algeria, Burundi, Kosovo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); and then through ICRP’s initiatives in Colombia, East Timor, Myanmar (Burma) and northern Iraq. In 2000 he directed the Parliamentarians for Global Action peacemaking seminar in Zambia.

Andrea Bartoli is the Director of the International Conflict Resolution Program of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He is a leader of the Sant’ Egidio Community in New York.

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