"In this place, which has done so much good for the city during the pandemic, the poor are called friends": Cardinal Aguiar Retes began his visit to to the site in the centre of Mexico City, where the Community of Sant'Egidio headquarters will be built, with these words.
Many friends, university students, homeless people, children from the Schools of Peace were able to spend a long time chatting with the cardinal and telling how the Community represents a place of welcome, a safe haven in a chaotic, dispersed and sometimes risky city.
The Cardinal wanted to personally greet the poor and get to know their stories so as to better understand how the Community strived during the pandemic to support more than 1,500 adults and elderly people who came every week in search of food and support.
César Cárdenas, head of the Community, said: " Friendship with the poor helps us to see the reality as it is everyday. Listening to the poor together with the reading of the Gospel is and will be our school. We understand the meaning of injustice and how to care for the other".
The Cardinal expressed his gratitude for the great passion with which the poor are helped and loved, for the initiatives carried out in the diocese and for the effort to keep inter-religious and ecumenical dialogue open in a "global" city that welcomes religious representatives of different faiths and cultures.
