At a time when more than fifty armed conflicts rage across the globe, the urgency of peace could not be clearer. This was the message brought to New York University’s Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, where Marco Impagliazzo, President of the Community of Sant’Egidio, delivered a powerful lecture entitled Daring Peace. The event, which also featured remarks from Andrea Bartoli, president of the Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue and a Columbia University scholar, offered both a historical perspective and a call to action for peace building in today’s fractured world.

Sant’egidio’s legacy

Founded in Rome in 1968, Sant’Egidio is a lay Catholic movement rooted in prayer, service to the poor, and the pursuit of peace. Today, it is active in over 70 countries, working with marginalized communities while also mediating conflicts on the international stage. Its best-known achievement remains the Mozambique peace agreement of 1992, a landmark example of how patient dialogue can end years of bloodshed. Since then, Sant’Egidio has been involved in numerous other efforts, including initiatives in Algeria in the 1990s, and more recently in South Sudan.

The human cost of war

Professor Impagliazzo underscored why the theme of peace is so pressing today. In every war, he reminded the audience, “the first victims are the defenseless: children, women, the elderly, the disabled, and the poor.” War, he said, “continues to kill long after it has ended,” leaving deep wounds in societies where almost all casualties are civilians. Whether in Syria, Yemen, Libya, or South Sudan, the devastation has counted in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives lost or displaced.

Quoting Pope Pius XII’s famous words “everything is lost in war, nothing is lost in peace”, he invited listeners to reflect on the futility of violence and the enduring hope that dialogue offers.

The path of peace

From Mozambique’s experience, Impagliazzo emphasized that “peace is not achieved with a magic wand. It is built little by little.” Far from being naïve, peace requires realism, sacrifice, and perseverance. War may feel more instinctive, more logical, especially when fueled by the mentality of victimhood, but as he reminded the audience, “war begins long before weapons are used. Hate and propaganda begin in the mind.”

Building peace, therefore, means confronting the culture of the enemy and daring to see the other not as a stranger but as a brother. He stressed: “peacemaking is not synonymous with surrender. Politics can achieve what war cannot. History teaches us that war does not resolve crises; it multiplies them through revenge and more wars.”

Friendship as resistance

What can ordinary people do in such a bleak context? Impagliazzo urged resistance to hatred and nationalism. He insisted on the underestimated power of friendship, sympathy, and human connection: “We need the force of sympathy. We need to stop people from being infected with hatred. True resistance is taking the time to understand each other, exploring other ways, and giving peace a chance.”

Peace, he concluded, is inseparable from hope. “There is no peace without hope, but peace itself gives hope”. He adds that those who believe in peace are not the idealists. They are the realists. The true idealists are those who think you can magically solve problems through war.

A call to action

One distinctive aspect of Sant’Egidio’s method is confidentiality: creating discreet spaces where adversaries can meet, listen, and begin to articulate a shared vision for peace. Much of its work takes place away from the headlines, but its quiet impact has transformed nations.

In our current environment where the temptation to resort to arms remains strong, Sant’Egidio’s example is a reminder that the courage to dialogue is perhaps the most daring and the most necessary form of resistance.