Colosseum lit up in Sant’Egidio initiative to end death penalty

November 30, 2010

The Colosseum and other landmarks in 1,307 communities were lit up on the evening of November 29-30 as part of the “Cities for Life” campaign, an annual initiative sponsored by the Community of Sant’Egidio community to end the use of the death penalty. Speakers in Rome included the 119th exonerated US death row inmate and the mother of a murder victim.

“From the outset, specific features of the Community have been service to the very poor and defense of human dignity and human rights, together with prayer and the communication of the Gospel,” according to the Pontifical Council for the Laity. “It has created ways of helping and extending friendship where there is poverty, both in its old and new forms (elderly people living alone and unable to cope, immigrants, homeless people, terminally ill and AIDS sufferers, children at risk of delinquency and social out-casting, itinerants and physically and mentally disabled people, drug addicts, war victims, inmates and people under sentence of death).”

 

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Further information:

• Lighting up 'Cities for Life' (Vatican Radio)
• Cities for Life (Community of Sant’Egidio)
• International Associations of the Faithful (Pontifical Council for the Laity)