Rome and Sotto il Monte, Italy - Celebrating new cardinals, from Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Italy

In the last days the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome got the opportunity to celebrate with a common prayer and a party archbishop of Abidjan, Jean Pierre Kutwa, and archbishop of

Ouagadougou Philippe Ouedraogo, bound by long friendship with the Community, after their creation as Cardinals by pope Francis.

In his preaching during the prayer - we read in the Community website, www.santegidio.org - Cardinal Ouedraogo recalled Sant'Egidio closeness to the African churches and societies: “I see you every day in Ouagadougou next to the prisoners, the street children, the elderly living alone: you are for us and for our church a help to live the Gospel. And you witness it with force also here in Rome, every night, with your prayers. In this spirit of service to the universal Church and to the poor, I want to live the cardinalate to which I was called by Pope Francis”.

Also Cardinal Kutwa thanked everyone for the long friendship of these years: “We worked together for peace in the Ivory Coast with the Community of Sant'Egidio. During the long crisis that divided the country, dialogue with the other religions, especially with Islam, was the weapon with which we were able to prevent the conflict from becoming a war of religion. Together our Churches in West Africa can look with hope to a future of peace”.

More or less in the same days Sant’Egidio in the world rejoiced at the news that new Cardinal Loris Capovilla, former secretary of Blessed pope John 23rd, the one who keeps with

faithfulness his memory and spiritual heritage of love for the Church, has been chosen to assume the “titulus” - the heading - of Santa Maria in Trastevere, the basilica where every night the Community gathers in prayer.