«In the heart of every man and woman is the desire for a full life, including that irrepressible longing for fraternity which draws us to fellowship with others and enables us to see them not as enemies or rivals, but as brothers and sisters to be accepted and embraced». By these words Pope Francis begins his Message for the 47th World Day of Peace, which will be celebrated on January 1st, 2014 on the theme: “Fraternity, the Foundation and Pathway to Peace”. Peace—the Pope said—cannot be separated from the awareness that we all belong to one human family.

In fact—the Holy Father’s message continues—«Fraternity is an essential human quality, for we are relational beings. A lively awareness of our relatedness helps us to look upon and to treat each person as a true sister or brother; without fraternity it is impossible to build a just society and a solid and lasting peace. We should remember that fraternity is generally first learned in the family, thanks above all to the responsible and complementary roles of each of its members, particularly the father and the mother. The family is the wellspring of all fraternity, and as such it is the foundation and the first pathway to peace, since, by its vocation, it is meant to spread its love to the world around it. The ever-increasing number of interconnections and communications in today’s world makes us powerfully aware of the unity and common destiny of the nations».
 

In August, we published the news of the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the 47th World Day of Peace, entitled "Peace is in Fraternity", with the link to the interview for our Dicastery’s President , the Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, “Toward a New Humanism of Brotherhood”.