The meeting, organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio on 23-25 October, brings together leaders of European and world churches, as well as Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and secular humanists, the embassy says in a statement.
Participants in the event stressed the importance of this meeting, which is held in a ”particular context marked by the war in Ukraine and the persistence of violence and conflict, particularly in Syria, the Horn of Africa and northern Mozambique.”
“It is urgent and necessary to make this cry for peace heard,” they stressed, noting that peace is the only possibility to ensure the survival of the planet and peoples.
Speaking on this occasion, the Italian President, Sergio Matarella, called for creating paths to peace with perseverance, through a collective commitment of the international community that values dialogue, negotiations and the use of diplomacy instead of weapons.
For his part, the founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, Andrea Riccardi, affirmed that every religion, when it tends towards peace, is at its best, quoting the words of Pope John Paul II, during the 1986 meeting in Assisi, calling for overcoming mutual ignorance and conflicts between believers.
The Secretary General of the Islamic World League, Mohammad Abdelkarim Al-Issa, said that “religion is a real influential force which, if misinterpreted, could be the cause of bloody wars throughout history”, referring to the many attempts to manipulate religious discourse.
