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The Human being and Fraternity – The Two Wings of the Jubilee of Hope “There is no greater wealth than fraternity.” The words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, taken from The Land of Men published in 1939 during World War II, resonate today with renewed force in St. Peter’s Square. It is here, a crossroads of cultures and life stories, that the third edition of the World Meeting on Human Fraternity will be held on Sept. 12 and 13. The event represents the third stage of a cultural and spiritual process inspired by the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti.

Some road together has been made, but the summit still requires a long way. In its first edition, the #notalone Meeting connected 11 squares from different corners of the world. Thirty Nobel Peace Laureates gathered in St. Peter’s Square and together with Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin signed the Declaration on Human Fraternity, then presented to the Holy Father. Young people from all corners of the world formed an evocative embrace of the Bernini colonnade open to the world. These are gestures and symbols that help create “a social alliance.”
In the second edition, working tables were born scattered in symbolic locations in the city of Rome, and Graça Machel Mandela, Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Bill Nelson, Administrator of Nasa, Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia, Oscar Arias Sánchez, former President of Costa Rica, indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchù Tum, and numerous others participated.

The depth of this experience lies in the strength of the encounter between different people and in the sharing of a common human horizon, as authoritatively summarized by President Mattarella during the audience granted to a gathering of Nobel Laureates, accompanied by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, President of the Fratelli tutti Foundation: “It is well known how the motto of the French Revolution aligned, alongside liberty and equality, the word ‘fraternity,’ which then quickly fell into disuse. Yet, that word represents the complement, indeed, the completion of the other two. It constitutes the landing place of the oft-invoked principle of solidarity. Those three principles together define the universal condition of citizenship. Therefore, fraternity as a category of thought deserves to be considered in the public space. And I am grateful for the Declaration on Human Fraternity that has been published: it is an extremely important message for the international community.”

Freedom and equality need fraternity. That is why the heart of the September Meeting will be enlivened by 15 thematic Working Tables-including Administrators and Information, Sports and Political Training, Childhood and Health, Labor and Education, Environment and Food Security, and Artificial Intelligence Economy-that are real laboratories connecting institutions and universities, local authorities and businesses, and civic and community networks. They will be hosted in authoritative and prestigious venues such as the Capitol and FAO, the EU headquarters, the Abi headquarters and the Province of Rome.

Each working table has the task of exploring key words to define the meaning of the human, collect good practices, select concrete actions and measure the application of the principle of fraternity through shared metrics and tools to assess its human, social and relational impact.

Seeds of fraternity have already taken root. Cnel, thanks to the labor table, has promoted a bill on fraternity in business. The agreement between Anci and the Foundation has enabled eight thousand Italian municipalities to adopt a resolution on fraternity through their city councils or councils. All information, including participation in the Sept. 12 day, is available on the Fratelli tutti Foundation website.

The work will flow into a document of guiding principles and concrete actions, a kind of “Tables of Humanity.” The goal is to guide public policies and educational paths, conscious decisions and strategic choices to respond to the complex challenges of our time.

On September 13, St. Peter’s Square will be the scene of an international evening event dedicated to fraternity with artists from the world stage. The culmination of two days of spiritual and cultural initiatives, the televised ceremony will serve as a multimedia platform to celebrate a great symbolic “human embrace,” the power of fraternity and the commitment to the protection of Creation.

The message to invest in is simple: by promoting the humanity of others, I also promote and defend my own. Those who deny it, sooner or later end up losing their own as well. Instead, “God is where your brothers are,” writes Eloi Leclerk in The Wisdom of a Poor Man.

Pope Leo XIV reminded people and cultures of this in his homily at the beginning of his pontificate: “Brothers, sisters, this is the hour of love! Together, as one people, as brothers all, let us walk toward God and love one another.”

Source: Piazza San Pietro magazine