Dom Jaime: Community of Sant’Egidio Mourns “A Man Of Peace And Dialogue”

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Dom Jaime: Community of Sant’Egidio Mourns “A Man Of Peace And Dialogue”

12:12 CAT | 08 Apr 2016

With the death of Dom Jaime Pedro Gonçalves, Archbishop Emeritus of Beira, Africa loses a man of peace and dialogue.

The prelate was one of the protagonists of the 1992 Agreement, signed in Rome with Sant’Egidio mediation, which led to peace.

Peace in Mozambique has become an example of how a non-institutional body like the Community of Sant’Egidio can bring to a successful conclusion, with a mixture and synergy of responsibilities, a mediation between governmental and non-governmental entities.

The Sant’Egidio community expresses its condolences and mourning for the death of Archbishop Emeritus of Beira, Bishop Jaime Gonçalves.

A man of peace and a figure in the Mozambican church from independence to date, Jaime Gonçalves made contact with the Sant’egidio community in the second half of the seventies, one of the most difficult moments for Catholics in a country with a Marxist-Leninist leadership. Through contacts with the community in Italy and with political figures such as Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti and Communist Party Secretary Enrico Berlinguer, Jaime Gonçalves made a decisive contribution to the improvement of the condition of Catholics in Mozambique.

As Archbishop of Beira in the early nineties he was, with Andrea Riccardi, Monsignor Matteo Zuppi and Mario Raffaelli, a mediator in the negotiations between the Marxist government and Renamo guerrillas, which led to the signing in Rome on October 4, 1992, of the peace agreement ending a 16-year civil war that had caused more than a million deaths.

Jaime Gonçalves was president of the Episcopal Conference of Mozambique and leader of the two synods on Africa. Sant’Egidio remembers him with affection for the friendship of so many years’ duration and countless meetings held in the name of the Gospel and of peace.

Source: www.santegidio.org