Shortly before noon, the pope arrived at the Sacred Convent of Assisi for the World Day of Prayer for Peace organized by the Sant'Egidio Community.<\/p>\n
His arrival caused much emotion among the main leaders participating in this event: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople; Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius Aphrem II; Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby; chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni; Abbas Shuman, deputy head of the most important university of the Islamic world, Al-Azhar University in Egypt.<\/p>\n
The pope entered the courtyard of the convent where other participants were waiting for him. There were some Yazidis, the other victims of the persecution of the Islamic State.<\/p>\n
'Thank you for praying for us and for working against Genocide.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
The pope greeted the Grand Dukes of Luxembourg and the representative of the Orthodox Church in Albania, which traditionally converses with Catholics, Muslims and atheists.<\/p>\n
'You serve as models of dialogue and help people. You gathered everyone together.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
As he greeted everyone down the line, he found many familiar faces, such as the chief rabbi of Turkey, whom he met during his trip to his country.<\/p>\n
'The first time you were in my city and now I am in your city. God bless you.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
There were several representatives of Islam, such as this one from Belgium, whom the pope thanked for his condemnation of the attacks, and the Emir of Nigeria, who left a senior position in a bank to engage in interreligious dialogue.<\/p>\n
'He understood that dialogue is more important than wealth.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
The meeting in Assisi also included people of many other religions and Eastern traditions.<\/p>\n
'For me, you are a blessing.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
This Buddhist attended the first meeting for peace organized by Pope John Paul II nearly 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
'It's me.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
There were many Catholics who are heroes of interreligious dialogue and helping people, such as this religious woman that rescues child soldiers.<\/p>\n
One-by-one, the pope stopped to greet the 500 participants and later had lunch with some of them. He saved a spot for twelve refugees and a family.<\/p>\n
'She is Maria. She is Syrian.\u00e2?\u009d
\n'You are our hope.\u00e2?\u009d
\n'She loves you, she said you are a symbol for peace.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
The organizers of this meeting and members of religions do not intend on organizing a theological debate about faith. Instead, they hope to show that what unites those who believe in God is the certainty that we must build peace.<\/p>\n
JMB\/YA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
September 20, 2016. This gesture shows that all religions call for peace together in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":38456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"http:\/\/youtu.be\/eMmkNRFbJVw","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/","international_url":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bpapaenasisint.mov","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}