Pope Francis accepts a gift from Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of Egypt s al-Azhar mosque and university, during a private audience at the Vatican Nov. 15, 2019. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
The United Nations General Assembly decided unanimously that Feb. 4 be observed each year as the International Day of Human Fraternity, starting in 2021. It invited member states, the U.N. system and others to observe the date in a manner each would consider appropriate.
It was on Feb. 4, 2019, that Pope Francis and the grand imam of Al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, signed the historic “Document on Human Fraternity” in Abu Dhabi. The General Assembly’s resolution specifically refers to that significant event in Christian-Muslim relations as the inspiration for the date.
Education on diversity fosters religious brotherhood
Vatican official reveals how Abu Dhabi document on fraternity can be realized in Indonesia
Divine Word Father Markus Solo Kewuta. (Photo supplied)
An Indonesian official at the Vatican has stressed the need to educate people better on religious diversity to see the goals set out in a groundbreaking document signed in Abu Dhabi last year by Pope Francis and the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, materialize in Indonesia.
Signed on Feb. 4, 2019, the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together
“believes firmly that among the most important causes of crises in the modern world are a desensitized human conscience, a distancing from religious values and a prevailing individualism accompanied by materialistic philosophies that deify the human person and introduce worldly and material values in place of supreme and transcendental principle.”