#NotAlone event at Vatican to show that human fraternity is possible

By Adriana Masotti

Saturday's late afternoon "World Meeting on Human Fraternity" in St. Peter's Square has been a great desire of Pope Francis, and much anticipated. The Meeting will begin at 4 pm Rome time and is open to anyone wishing to participate. In the morning, there will be opportunities to discuss the theme of human fraternity, with the event bringing together some 30 Nobel Peace Laureates, together with young people and humanitarian associations, in order to understand what kind of world is possible when the we focus on the importance of human fraternity, as expressed in Pope Francis' encyclical Fratelli tutti. 

Representatives of some 76 organizations will be on hand, including representatives of the Christian Workers Movement, the Secular Franciscan Order, and members of Italy's agricultural association, Coldiretti, in addition to the Cooperativa Auxilium medical assistance and outreach organization. The World Meeting on Human Fraternity, with the title "Not Alone", aims to relaunch Pope Francis' dream of fraternity and also offer a way to express the closeness and prayers of all for the Pope, who was originally expected to be present at the event, but is currently in hospital.

Work in progress setting up stands on the Via della Conciliazione avenute that leads to St. Peter's Square

Link-up with eight squares around the world

St. Peter's Square is "a place to be open more and more to the world in order to transform it", says Father Francesco Occhetta, secretary general of the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, which is organizing the event in collaboration with St. Peter's Basilica, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and the Dicastery for Communication.

The centre of the event will be in St. Peter's Square, but with a live, worldwide dimension: eight squares in other places around the world will be linked live via television so that participants around the globe can share and promote their own experiences of fraternity. The participating countries and cities are: Italy (Trappani), Congo (Brazzaville), the Central African Republic (Bangui), Ethiopia, Argentina (Buenos Aires), Israel (Jerusalem), Japan (Nagasaki), and Peru (Lima). And giving witness to fraternity will be performing artists including, Andrea Bocelli, Al Bano, Amara Roberto Bolle, Giovanni Caccamo, Cristicchi, Hauser, Carly Paoli, Piccolo Coro dell'Antoniano, Mr. Rain, Amii Stewart, and Paolo Vallesi. Presenters will include Carlo Conti, families, and associations, together with those who live on the margins of society, from the poor and the homeless, to migrants and victims of violence and human trafficking.

Handshake of Russian and Ukrainian youth

Young people from around the world will hold hands, reflecting the embrace of the Bernini colonnade forming St. Peter's Square as a concrete sign of fraternity. The organisers say this gesture came at the suggestion of Argentinian philanthropist Alejandro Roemmers. And at a time when we are experiencing the tragedy of a new war in Europe, "two young men, a Ukrainian and a Russian, will shake hands to express the desire for peace of all humanity", according to Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the Pope's vicar for Vatican City and president of the Fratelli Tutti Foundation. At the end of the meeting a "Declaration of Fraternity" will be signed to reaffirm before the whole world the Church's "No!" to war and her commitment to dialogue and peacebuilding.

Preparations for the "Not Alone" Human Fraternity event on Saturday in St. Peter's Square

Sharing art and experiences

The Meeting will be broadcast live by Vatican Media and worldwide by Italy's public broadcaster Rai1 from 5 pm to 6:45 pm, and will be streamed on the Foundation's website, Facebook, and YouTube channels. For those who will be in and around St. Peter's Square, access will begin at 2 pm, with the event continuing into the evening from 8:45 pm until 10 pm.

Circus and street artists will perform among the people in the Square. At the numerous stands being set up along the Via della Conciliazione that leads to St. Peter's Square, Italy's agricultural association Coldiretti will offer food from the Italian countryside as a sign of sharing and fraternity. The Fondazione Campagna Amica association is also participating, showing its commitment with the slogan: "Agriculture is inclusion, solidarity, brotherhood".

All participants in the event will be given a clod of earth and a seed to grow a plant of fraternity, making the commitment to care for the plant from which a flower will grow by next year. In fact, among the images that provide the backdrop for Saturday's event is a garden, a symbol of the Earth that women and men are called upon to populate, water, inhabit, and safeguard.