ROME — Pope Francis celebrated the Second International Day of Human Fraternity Friday, calling on all people of faith to a spirit of universal brotherhood.
Three years ago, the pope co-signed the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together in Abu Dhabi, together with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayyeb.
While the Abu Dhabi declaration was well received by many, it also received sharp criticism from prominent theologians for allegedly “devaluing the person of Jesus” and “undermining the gospel” since it seemed to propose that God willed the existence of a plurality of religions just as he wills a plurality of sexes, races, and languages, an assertion that runs contrary to Catholic belief.
The passage that provoked the greatest consternation read: “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom, through which he created human beings.”
In a video message Friday, Francis made an appeal for universal fraternity as “a bulwark against hatred, violence and injustice.”
“Fraternity is one of the fundamental and universal values that ought to undergird relationships between peoples, so that the suffering or disadvantaged do not feel excluded and forgotten, but accepted and supported as part of the one human family. We are brothers and sisters!” he declared.
In a mutual and shared spirit of fraternity, he continued, “all of us must work to promote a culture of peace that encourages sustainable development, tolerance, inclusion, mutual understanding and solidarity.”
“We all live under the same heaven, independently of where and how we live, the colour of our skin, religion, social group, sex, age, economic conditions or our state of health,” he said. “All of us are different yet equal, and this time of pandemic has shown that clearly.”
Believers from different religious traditions are called to “help our brothers and sisters raise their eyes and their prayers to heaven,” the pontiff asserted. “Let us raise our eyes to heaven, because whoever worships God with a sincere heart also loves his or her neighbour.”
Now is not “a time for indifference,” he said, since “either we are brothers and sisters, or everything falls apart.”
“We see this in the little wars, in this third world war now being fought piecemeal, as peoples are destroyed, as children go hungry, as their opportunities for education decline,” he said. “It is destruction. Either we are brothers and sisters, or everything falls apart.”
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