Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life

On March 1, 2016 Dr. Mauro Garofalo from the Sant’Egidio Community in Rome spoke at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs about the global mission of this organization. Sant’Egidio is an international lay community of more than 70,000 members working in 73 countries promoting peace and helping the most vulnerable people in our society. Members of Sant’Egidio commit themselves to prayer, active solidarity with our world’s poor, and living out the Gospel. They are a self-proclaimed “Christian living body” that exemplifies many important lessons of Catholic social teaching.

Over the last two years a river of blood has been spilled in the name of religion. We have witnessed the ongoing persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Buddhist Myanmar; brutal bombings in several cities including Paris, Beirut, Baghdad, Ankara, Brussels, and Lahore; an attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Pakistan; a synagogue targeted in Jerusalem; the assaults on Muslim civilians in the Central African Republic by Christian militants; ISIS’ persecution of the Yazidi; and the numerous other victims across faiths and continents that have suffered—and died—from religious violence.