| Perennial hopeful sees Nobel pass by
again
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
As far as the Nobel Peace Prize is concerned, the Community of
Sant’Egidio has become something like the Boston Red Sox -- a squad
forever on the verge of winning the big one, only to see it slip away.
And, like the Red Sox, the annual disappointment for
Sant’Egidio comes in October.
Ironically, the announcement that the Nobel committee of the
Norwegian parliament had picked Jimmy Carter for this year’s Nobel came
midday on Oct. 11, the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican
Council (1962-65), the event that breathed life into Sant’Egidio. Founder
Andrea Riccardi, a widely respected Italian church historian, was taking part
in a round table discussion on the council at Rome’s Foreign Press Club
when the news broke.
Riccardi betrayed no emotion, but he could be forgiven for feeling
that another crowning moment had come and gone.
It is a measure of what makes Sant’Egidio unique that while
other new movements inside Catholicism get excited principally about
ecclesiastical honors, such as the canonization of their founders,
Sant’Egidio Ñ which, to be sure, does not snub signs of
hierarchical favor -- nevertheless covets the Nobel Prize above all.
Launched in 1968 by Riccardi, then a high school student in Rome,
Sant’Egidio (St. Giles in English) takes its name from an old Carmelite
convent in the Trastevere district where early members gathered for worship.
(Sant’Egidio is today nicknamed “the U.N. of Trastevere.”)
Inspired by Vatican II and the leftist student energies of the
time, members began by living and working among the poor along the city’s
periphery. They founded “popular schools” for disadvantaged
children.
In 1986, when John Paul II called leaders of the world’s
religions to Assisi to pray for peace, Sant’Egidio welcomed the initiative
despite criticism from some quarters that the event risked relativism. Every
year since, they have sponsored an interreligious gathering to keep “the
spirit of Assisi” alive.
In various parts of the world, Sant’Egidio has been involved
in negotiating an end to armed conflicts. A breakthrough success came on Oct.
4, 1992, when they brokered a peace accord in Mozambique, ending a civil war
that had left more than 1 million people dead. The community proudly says the
Mozambique deal was “the first intergovernmental agreement ever negotiated
by a nongovernmental body.”
The community also took part in negotiations in Algeria, Guinea
Bissau and Yugoslavia. It is credited with playing a role in the 1996 peace
treaty in Guatemala, ending a 36-year conflict that saw some 200,000 people
“disappeared.”
Sant’Egidio is active on human rights issues, especially its
campaign to abolish the death penalty worldwide. In 2001 the community
delivered a petition with 2.7 million signatures supporting abolition of
capital punishment to the United Nations.
Because Sant’Egidio was born in Rome, and because it is
involved in a bewildering variety of secular and ecclesiastical projects in the
city, its local profile is high. While Catholics elsewhere may associate
“new movements” with the conservative wing of the church because of
the influence of groups such as Opus Dei, the Legionaries of Christ, and the
Neocatechumenate, Vatican officials tend not to make the same association
because the movement they know best is often Sant’Egidio.
For its contributions, Sant’Egidio won the 1999 Félix
Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize, awarded by a U.N. jury headed by former U.S.
Secretary of State (and Nobel Peace Prize laureate) Henry Kissinger.
Also in 1999, Sant’Egidio won the prestigious Niwano Peace
Prize in Tokyo, awarded by a committee of seven members representing the
Buddhist, Christian, and Islamic traditions.
The big one that has so far gotten away, however, is the
Nobel.
Every year for the last decade, the community has been tipped as a
candidate. This year, for example, the American Friends Service Committee, a
co-recipient of the award in 1947 on behalf of all Quakers, nominated
Sant’Egidio.
“Their commitment to nonviolence and their sustained and
effective peace building work amply qualify the Community of Sant’Egidio
to join the ranks of other Nobel Peace laureates who have pointed the way
toward world peace,” said Margery Walker, clerk of the Nobel Nominating
Committee of the American Friends Service Committee.
Sant’Egidio officials thought 2002 might be the best shot,
since it marks the 10th anniversary of the Mozambique peace accords.
Though rarely expressed out loud, Sant’Egidio’s interest
in the Nobel is clear to those who know the group. A few critics, turned off by
what they see as the community’s appetite for self-promotion, have
actually said they wish the Norwegians would give Sant’Egidio the prize so
they can get it out of their system.
Perhaps Riccardi can take some consolation from a bit of history.
In 1994, the U.N. awarded the Houphouët-Boigny Prize to Jimmy Carter; in
1999, it went to Sant’Egidio. In 1992, the University of Notre Dame
bestowed its international service honor on Carter; in 2001, it went to
Riccardi and Sant’Egidio.
If this trend holds, Carter’s victory may mean there is hope
yet for Sant’Egidio’s Nobel cause.
John L. Allen Jr. is NCR Rome correspondent. His e-mail
address is jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, October 25,
2002
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