The next Inter-Religious Meeting that Comunità di Sant’Egidio is going to organise in Naples will be focussed on the Mediterranean, with special reference to the Holy Land and the Lebanese issue. It was announced in Assisi by Andrea Riccardi, founder of the community, at a final meeting with the press. "Here in Assisi we have seen delegates from Syria and Lebanon sitting at the same table as those from Israel at a time in which it would seem impossible said Riccardi : this is the fruit of twenty years of inter-religious meetings in the Spirit of Assisi, patiently built by weaving sympathetic human relations". Many fruitful initiatives, recalled Riccardi, have come from each meeting, "such as the contribution to the release of abducted hostages or, on a different scale, the improvement in ecumenical relations, shown by factual gestures, such as the embrace in Lisbon in 2000 between the Patriarch and the Jewish community of the city, or in Bucharest in 1998 the hosting of the Meeting of the Orthodox Community". Factual initiatives "not least in solidarity, such as today’s announcement by the Mayor of Rome, Veltroni, to commit himself to lobby the Government to cut off 20% of the Aids pandemic in Africa, aware that Europe and Africa share the same fate".
