St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. / Credit: Alexander_Peterson/Shutterstock
Rome Newsroom, Jun 5, 2023 / 12:20 pm (CNA).
Nobel laureates, Grammy-winner Andrea Bocelli, and several former heads of state will join Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square on Saturday night for the World Meeting on Human Fraternity.
The June 10 event, called “#Not Alone,” will culminate with Pope Francis signing a document calling for a commitment to human fraternity drafted by a dozen Nobel Peace Prize winners together with representatives of former Nobel Prize-winning organizations.
Young people representing different countries will also form “a symbolic embrace” by joining hands in a ring around St. Peter’s Square, according to the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, the sponsor of the event.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, described the upcoming meeting as “a great day of celebration and unity inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tutti, transcending a vision that restricts social friendship to ethnic or blood ties.”
Speaking at a Vatican press conference promoting the event, Jesuit Father Francesco Occhetta, the head of the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, noted that participants in the event “will be given as a gift a piece of organic soil and seeds to plant and germinate as a symbol of the commitment to guard fraternity.”
Nobel laureates who have confirmed their participation in the World Meeting on Human Fraternity include Iraqi human rights advocate Nadia Murad, Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege, and Yemeni Arab Spring leader Tawakkol Karman.
The former presidents of Colombia, Costa Rica, Poland, and Democratic Republic of East Timor — all peace prize winners — will also participate, as well as representatives of several U.N. organizations that have been past recipients.
The World Meeting on Human Fraternity will begin with private meetings of five working groups representing Nobel laureates, the poor, environmentalists, students, and associations.
At 4 p.m. local time, Italian TV presenter Carlo Conti, the former host of Italy’s national Eurovision competition, will kick off an Italian television broadcast of the World Meeting on Human Fraternity event in St. Peter’s Square with performances by Bocelli and other Italian musical artists.
Pope Francis will join the event two hours later to listen to what emerged in the working group discussions, sign the human fraternity document, and join the symbolic embrace. Later, circus performers and street artists will take to the stage in St. Peter’s Square to perform until 10 p.m.
Town squares in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Jerusalem; Nagasaki, Japan; Brazzaville, Republic of Congo; and four other locations in the world will connect live to St. Peter’s Square for the event.
The following is a list of Nobel laureates and Nobel laureate representatives who will participate in the World Meeting on Human Fraternity, according to the Vatican:
Juan Manuel Santos, president of the Republic of Colombia from 2010 to 2018 (Colombia): Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his resolute commitment to ending the civil war that has affected his country for 50 years.
Oscar Arias Sánchez, president of the Republic of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2010 (Costa Rica): Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1987 for his efforts in promoting peace and stability in Central America, in particular for his efforts to end conflicts in the region and promote dialogue and cooperation between countries.
Lech Wałęsa, president of the Republic of Poland from 1990 to 1995 (Poland): Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his nonviolent struggle for human rights and free trade unions in Poland. As leader of the Solidarność trade union, he played a key role in the rights of workers and in the promotion of democracy in his country.
José Ramos-Horta, president of the Democratic Republic of East Timor (East Timor): Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1996 for his work in favor of a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.
Jody Williams, founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and president of the Nobel Women’s Initiative (United States): Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1997 for work on banning and clearing landmines.
Shirin Ebadi, president of the Defenders for Human Rights Centre (Iran): Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her commitment to the defense of democracy, human rights, and especially women and children in Iran.
Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank (Bengals): Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work in promoting economic and social development through the concept of microcredit. Through the Grameen Bank, he provided affordable finance to the poor and helped improve their living conditions.
Leymah Roberta Gbowee, president of Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa (Liberia): Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2011. As a leader of the Liberian women’s movement, she played a vital role in ending the civil war and promoting reconciliation in her country.
Tawakkol Karman, leader of the Arab Spring (Yemen): Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. As a journalist and activist, he defended human rights, democracy, and freedom of expression in his country.
Denis Mukwege, gynecologist (Democratic Republic of Congo): Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2018 for providing medical care and support to women victims of sexual violence in times of war and armed conflict.
Nadia Murad Basee Taha, president and co-founder of Nadia’s Initiative (Iraq): Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2018 for her efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.
Giorgio Parisi, vice president of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy): Nobel Prize in Physics in 2021 for the discovery of the interaction between disorder and fluctuations in physical systems, from the atomic to the planetary scale.
Maria Angelita Ressa, president of Rappler Inc. (Philippines): Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.
International Peace Bureau (IPB): Organization Nobel Peace Prize in 1910 for liaising between the peace societies of various countries and helping them organize world meetings of the international peace movement. Represented by Philip James Jennings, president.
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC): Organization Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1947 for its pioneering work in the international peace movement and compassionate effort to alleviate human suffering, thereby promoting brotherhood among nations. Represented by Hector Manuel Cortez, deputy secretary general.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the organization in 1954 and 1981 for its commitment to heal the wounds of war by providing aid and protection to refugees from all over the world and for the promotion of the fundamental rights of refugees. Represented by Filippo Grandi, high commissioner.
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF): Organization Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1965 for its commitment to strengthening solidarity between nations and narrowing the gap between rich and poor states. The organization is dedicated to promoting and advocating for the rights of children, working to improve their health, education, and well-being around the world. Represented by Bo Viktor Nylund, special representative.
International Labour Organization (ILO): Nobel Peace Prize Organization in 1969 for having created international legislation that ensures certain standards for working conditions in each country. Represented by Gianni Rosas, ILO office director for Italy and San Marino.
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW): 1985 Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization to disseminate authoritative information and create awareness of the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear war. Represented by Kati Riitta Maria Juva, co-president, and Onazi David, co-chair.
Peace Operations, United Nations Peacekeeping Forces: Nobel Peace Prize Organization in 1988. Its mission is to prevent armed clashes and create the conditions for negotiations between countries in conflict. Represented by Aroldo Lazaro Saenz.
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs: Organization awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for its efforts to diminish the role of nuclear weapons in international politics and, in the long term, for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Represented by Paolo Cotta Ramusino, general secretary.
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL): Organization awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for its work in banning and clearing landmines. Represented by Tun Channareth, ICBL world ambassador, and Denise Coghlan, RSM, member of the board of directors.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): Organization awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for its efforts to prevent the use of nuclear energy for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used as safely as possible. Represented by Jacek Andrzej Bylica, IAEA chief of staff.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Organization awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for its efforts to build and disseminate greater knowledge of man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures necessary to counter them. Represented by Hoesung Lee, president.
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW): Organization Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2013 for efforts to eliminate chemical weapons. Represented by Odette Melon, vice general manager.
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN): Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and its pioneering efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons. Represented by Daniel Högsta, interim executive director.
Center for Civil Liberties: Nobel Peace Prize Organization in 2022. It has been promoting the right of expression and fundamental rights of citizens for many years. It worked hard to document war crimes, violence, and abuses of power. With its work, it demonstrates the importance of civil society for peace and democracy. Represented by Oleksandra Matvijchuk.
United Nations: Nobel Peace Prize Organization in 2001 for its work for a more inclusive and peaceful world. Represented by Miguel Angel Moratinos, undersecretary-general of the United Nations, who contributed to the creation and launch of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) in 2005 and since 2019 has held the position of high representative of the UNAOC.
Oley Back Road, representing Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2011 for her nonviolent fight for women’s safety and their right to full participation in peacebuilding.
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““We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies.”
We focus on sex becaust at the moment that is the sin that is being pushed most, with claims tha sexual sin is not evil and that we must be “tolerant.”
“Have you never seen young priests all stiff in black cassocks and hats in the shape of the planet Saturn on their heads? Behind all the rigid clericalism there are serious problems.””
There are a lot fewer problems with them, I suspect, than with the young priests who are schlepping around in lay clothes being just one of the guys. The ones in the cassocks and with the hats are at least remembering that they are priests.
More often than not..one of the GAY guys.
Whats a BILLION babies murdered by abortion to this Pope….just a chance to bash Catholics who take the faith seriously.
As we have come to endure, Pope Francis makes one good point by unmaking another. No, clericalism is NOT a “fixation on sexual morality”…
Instead, clericalism–as the collared form of domination–is rooted in lust. The height of clericalism in all its forms is to appropriate what is not our own.
From St. Paul: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own” (1 Cor 6:19). And this from St. Augustine who, from early personal experience, surely knew what he was talking about:
“But to return to the word ‘lust’. As lust for revenge is called anger, so lust for money is avarice, lust to win at any price is obstinacy, lust for bragging is vanity. And there are still many other kinds of lust, some with names and some without. For example, it would be difficult to find a specific name for that lust for domination [clericalism!]which plays such havoc with the souls of the ambitious soldiers and comes to light in every civil war” (Book XIV, Ch. 15).
The Church itself is now in civil war–betrayed by the lust of an evasive “clericalism” that would enable and normalize the homosexual subculture even within the Church! There’s also the insight, maybe from a former pope, that while perhaps overrated in itself, sexual failing is nevertheless an open door to all of the other fatal vices, including those now flagged by Pope Francis (“social injustice, slander, gossip, lies”).
“Have you never seen young priests all stiff in black cassocks and hats in the shape of the planet Saturn on their heads? Behind all the rigid clericalism there are serious problems.” Truly, the hatefulness of this man knows no bounds. He sees modesty and virtue, devotion and piety, self-effacement and discipline with a jaundiced and sickly eye!
Francis is preparing the soil for what comes out of the German Synod.
I am very touched by Pope Francis humanity. He is wonderful gift to the church and the word. A true shepherd.
Marxists are always probing for weaknesses in the society they wish to destroy. Extreme poverty is inexcusable but Marxism draws its diabolical strength from envy. Sexual immorality leads to poverty of unwed mothers or abandoned wives and children, AIDS and other STDs and abortion. Sexual immorality has destroyed western civilization.
And yet, so much of the focus on sexual immorality concerns homosexuality rather than adultery or straight up fornication. No woman was ever left an unwed mother due to homosexual activity.
No woman was ever left an unwed mother due to homosexual activity.
You conveniently omitted the caveat “that I know of.”
And yet, so much of the focus on sexual immorality concerns homosexuality rather than adultery or straight up fornication.
80%+ of abuse committed by sexual deviants masquerading as Catholic Priests involves homosexual ephebophilia. The Pontiff might be capable of multitasking – although that remains in doubt – but he needs to first purge the seminaries, consecrated religious and Priesthood of homosexuals before he can have any credibility judging the sinful behavior of adulterers and fornicators.
OMG!
A true shepherd.
A true shepherd wouldn’t cultivate schism.
Pope Francis is The best pope we have had in my lifetime and I was born 15 yrs before the death of Pius XII.
“We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies. The Church today needs a profound conversion in this area,” the pope said. Most of the young priests in cassocks coming out of the seminaries unscathed by those clerics that the clericalists won’t remove are in fact well balanced in morality, liturgy, and charity. If things can be said of a priest who does not know his flock, what should be said of a Pope who does not know his priests.
Pope Francis is right, fundamentalism and Catholic fundamentalists spend way too much focus on sexuality and ignore the worst sins going on in the world! it’s time for people to reread what Jesus had to say about what’s really important
Blaise Cupich, is that you?
At least we have a clue as to why PF did nothing about McCarrick, did not respond to the Dubia, protected his abusive friend Bishops in South America, and told the American Bishops to take a hike when they tried to convene to do something about the 2018 summer of shame clerical sexual abuses. He just doesn’t see Greed and Lust as being that bad at all, despite them still being on the list of capital sins.
Based on the Pope’s statements, I guess that he must regard Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and all the virgin saints as being too sexually rigid. By his non-standards their chastity must be completely unacceptable to the modernist wing of the Church.
The millions of lives lost to abortion and the millions more ruined by the sexual revolution (which includes persons sexually abused by Priests who have betrayed their vow of celibacy) are far more important and a far more immediate threat to the world than climate change or migrants.
“… Have you never seen young priests all stiff in black cassocks and hats in the shape of the planet Saturn on their heads? Behind all the rigid clericalism there are serious problems.”
The Pontiff’s tendency to utter foolish, nonbinding, prudential statements and his well documented apathy and indifference to the heretics polluting the clerical state are legitimate, serious problems not the traditional head gear and clerical attire worn by faithful Priests.
ACTION ITEM! SATURNOS FOR CLERICS!
“We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies”. Unless the Pontiff has discovered a new sanctification for the Christian and for all persons historically personal holiness is what initiates authentic compassion for the underprivileged and the environment evidenced in Medieval Catholicism’s initiating hospital care for the poor, monastic advancements in agricultural development, care of animals Francis of Assisi a prime example. The dearth of effective response in the world at present is due precisely to secularist global organizations and their benefactors who persistently foster a political agenda of unprincipled morality in guise of freedom [Catholicism has been verbally attacked by senior UN officials for being against contraception and abortion – although some Catholic agencies have succumbed especially in support of tho Pontiff]. It is reducible to conversion to a secular humanist vision that inhibits convincing response. What viable impact has the ‘brotherhood’ of secular socialists had? George Soros a prime example who had said he is like God. Because Pope Francis follows his bidding in principle. Certainly there is evidence of parallel interests and known monetary support to Church social justice programs and nominal Catholic political candidates. Abortion on the demand focus off traditional family structure acceptance of where you’re at morally. Except if you’re rigid wear a cassock teach the truth on sexual morality – not the gravest yet the most prolific sin the likely major cause for eternal condemnation.