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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They know they can’t remove pages from the Bible. They just say the teachings of the Bible are too hard for some to live in their “complex situations” and thus say we have to make exceptions to the “norm” while at the same time saying the teachings haven’t changed.
Hi, dear ‘JP’: “They just say the teachings of the Bible are too hard .”
You are spot-on: effete church ‘leaders’ see nothing wrong in incorporating the ungodly in The Church, aiming for the numbers, money, & influence that counterfeit recruits are all too willing to supply.
Yet, King Jesus Christ (see Matthew 7:13-14) made it clear that His followers must accept the hardness of The Way that He leads us on. The alternative, easier, popular way leads only to destruction.
Good men & women have never been put off by the prospect of picking up their cross daily to follow our beloved LORD. That is the truth about how things have to be in this world. No one can alter that, not even a pope.
Perseveringly seeking to follow Jesus Christ (a lifetime’s occupation) has always brought out the best in us. This is how God created it to be!
Catholics’ faithfulness to The New Testament, be it ever-so hard, is what invites The Holy Spirit of God to confront the sinful world (John 16:8-11), and that is the whole reason for the existence of The Church.
They lie perniciously in saying: “The Church exists to make the world a better place.”
What is it about Christ’s superb plan that so many church hierarchs are choking on? Why do they sell out for a tawdry and futile impost?
Ever blessed by The Lamb of God; loving prayers from marty
In other words, we don’t dare urge anyone to repent these days (no matter how tactful and prudent we may be). I guess we are to simply “accompany them” as they persist in the mortal sin(s) that can possibly lead them to Hell. 🙄
Say orthodoxy, live heteropraxy.
If the Church preceded the Bible, and if in fact the Bible is the creation of the Church, then it seems to me that the Church can do what She will with it.
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That would be an incredibly stupid thing to do, but it seems it could be done.
Ah, but the Church did not precede the Word of God, nor can she do with the Word of God what she will (cf CCC 104).
The Bible and The Word of God are not the same thing.
“In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, ‘but as what it really is, the word of God’…” (CCC 104)
“For the Sacred Scriptures contain the word of God and since they are inspired, really are the word of God…” (DV 24)
But the Word is Christ, is it (He) not? The Bible refers to that in the Gospel of John.
The Old Testament was written over a long span of time before Christ was born. The New Testament after He died. Actually, there were many “books” written before and after, and somebody (or rather somebodies) had to make a decision on what was to be canon and what was not.
https://www.catholic.com/qa/who-compiled-the-bible-and-when
Come to think of it the Catechism is much the same. There have been many different versions.
I disagree with removing pages from the Bible, but I just don’t see why the Church could not do it.
Mrs. Hess, the Book of Genesis is part of the Bible. It preceded the institution of the Church.
I refer to the Bible as a whole, not individual books
The fact that he would feel obliged to say such a thing is quite disturbing.
What kind of pressures can he be experiencing that would prompt him to even contemplate a Church event that would contravene the Gospel of Christ Jesus?
THIS is a very positive and affirming commentary. Very welcome to this reader. And, we also read a warning: “There is bad press against the Holy Father that’s not fair and that has as its objective the same thing that they try to do in the world, which is class struggle. They want to divide us Catholics from the pope and the pope from Catholics.”
Only “in the world?”
Yours truly recalls in 1994 pointing out this Marxist problem, even within the Church itself, to a visiting priest with a permanent teaching position in Rome. Academically insulated—and now open-mouthed, he had never even thought of it. Ever.
The CONCERN by some is the degree to which synodality in its current formulation might be too welcoming to a populistic and amnesiac vanguard, “walking together” with the “bad press” agenda? Why, for example, is the “non-synod” (!) Synodal Way even at the Synod table in Rome, and already distributing its script? How much of a “paradigm shift” does it take to divide the magisterium and the “hierarchical communion” from itself? Not by simply removing pages from the Bible, but by removing the Church of today from itself (Lumen Gentium)—from even the idea of Tradition, including the accountability and historical fact of the apostolic succession (Mt 28:19-20)?
The subtle AND possibly fatal difference between the “gospel values of Jesus” and the concretely incarnate “Christ of the gospels”—”the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb 13:8)? With the Holy Spirit not only somewhere out there ahead of us, but already and first indwelling the Church—from the beginning—ever since Pentecost.
TODAY, the mingled risk of intuitionism, and the rescheduled and fictional Third Age of the 12th-century Joachim of Fiore? Or, Pentecost? But hopefully, too, with Archbishop Rodriguez: “the Holy Spirit is working…
“They [bad press] want to divide us Catholics from the pope and the pope from Catholics,..” No.
What divides Catholics is Vatican perverting and subverting of VCII documents. What divides are attempts to paradigmatic shift Church teaching. Undermining and reorienting doctrine to ‘pastorality’ through documents like Amoris, Fratelli, Traditiones Custodes, and Laudate has divided Catholics. Including laity with progressive ideology and non-bishops as voting members in this synod is emblematic of an assault on a teaching and valid synod. Disallowing “good press” sets the agenda and outcome of this papacy’s divisive synod front, center, and in absolutely clear focus.
Counterfeiting, denying, obfuscating, and facilely trying to convince that it has not damaged, stolen, buried, or thrown away any of the Church’s treasure, Rome fools no one of its divisive cause celebre.
Rome has shredded her credibility. Orthodox Catholics detest lying and obfuscating words. We want words of Christ, not of false teachers and their false spirits. Our few good shepherds are persecuted, ignored, ridiculed, denied welcome among the false and so we see abomination in the heart of Rome.
The Church is the Lord’s, and he holds Her dear. True believers fear Him. No one else frightens us.
Communion. CNA’s Sanchez Silva refers twice to the Synod on Synodality’s original 2021 theme, Communion, Participation, and Mission.
Communion within the Church, our bond with Christ is Christ himself in the Holy Eucharist. Today, the feast of a great father, martyr for Christ St Ignatius of Antioch speaks to that bond understood by Ignatius as Christ, who speaks to “deep within” him, “Come to the Father. I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or the delights of this world. I want only God’s bread, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and for drink I crave his blood, which is love that cannot perish”(Ignatius in a letter to the Romans). For Ignatius Christ was alive within. He speaks of Christ as the living, resurrected Christ, much like the Apostle Paul. Ignatius was a friend of Bishop Polycarp, a brother martyr saint and apparently according to historical sources, a student of the greatest of the Apostles.
This martyr’s love is consistent with the living presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As the crucifixion was Christ’s absorption of the death penalty we deserved, his resurrection was evidence of our forgiveness. As the Apostle says if Christ had not risen from the dead our faith would be useless. Augustine centuries later would trace that perception in the Fathers calling the resurrection God’s most marvelous work.
Among the faithful there’s a weakness of this awareness of the risen, living Christ, received and alive within us at Holy Communion. It was fitting beyond measure that communion is mentioned first in the original theme. The challenge now is for the conceptual Synodal Church to realize that participation with Christ and our true mission is revealed in the Eucharistic presence of the living Word.
“…our bond with Christ is Christ himself in the Holy Eucharist.” In a Letter to the Ephesians, St. Ignatius of Antioch also finds of the Church a Eucharistic unity:
“…for you are as united with him (the bishop) as the Church is to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ to the Father, so that all things are in harmony through unity” (St. Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, Liturgy of the Hours, Second Sunday of Ordinary Time).
Harmony through unity, rather than unity through editing. Wondering, here, how the “experts” of the Synod will put their Humpty-Dumpty facsimile together again?
Fr. Morello, Thank you for what you have said in this post about the Resurrection. I recently bought and placed a picture of the Holy Face placed beside the Divine Mercy picture and alongside the Eucharist and the Crucifix in our Eucharistic prayer Chapel.I also bought and placed a large statue of the Risen Christ right beside the Eucharist on a separate table. We must have all of Christ. Without the Passion there would be no Resurrection and Divine Mercy. All was done with the parish priests permission.In the Resurrection Christ overcame death and carved a path through it for us to follow Him to Heaven and now I understand it as His sign of forgiveness. Beautiful. If you see I misunderstand any of this please offer me your correction. In JMJ, Diane McHenry
What about all the parts of the Bible we do ignore?
Dear ‘Sher’, was wondering who is the ‘we’ you refer to?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church does a great job in highlighting & explicating the various books of The Holy Bible and the inspired works of our early saints.
Appropriately (since Jesus Christ is One with God The Father & God The Holy Spirit, is The Beginning and The End of all things, & The Reason that all things exist), the CCC majors on HIS life example & HIS instructions by building itself on over 3,500 citations from The Holy Spirit-inspired Apostolic witness of all 27 texts of The New Testament.
You may be right if you mean that many Catholics – both clergy & lay – are shockingly ignorant of The New Testament, having never been informed that it is the very Charter of God’s New Covenant with humanity, the most important text in the entire cosmos.
Perhaps good Catholics have been put off by the faith-destroying & obfuscating ‘scholarship’ of many modern & postmodern, catholic, New Testament academics, who are in breach of the faithful hermeneutic of our Catechism and doubly sin, in betraying Truth and in obstructing & misleading Christs’ little ones.
We really have no excuse. In every Holy Mass that we participate in, the priest and the people all rise to welcome The Gospel with loud Alleluias, and we declare: “Praise to You, LORD Jesus Christ!” Then with serious intent we sign our foreheads with The Cross to declare we believe Christ’s Word, sign our lips in promise to ever declare Christ’s Word, and sign our hearts to say how we will love Christ’s Word above all.
Hopefully, the shock of the present PF-inspired anti-Apostolic crisis in The Church will awake us from our spiritual laziness and sponsor a desire among all Catholics to become thoroughly au fait with The New Testament, personally & parish-wide.
Ever under the glory of God’s Word, King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty