Dr Yunus meets Pope, co-chairs World Summit on Human Fraternity

The second World Meeting on Human Fraternity was held in Vatican City on 10-11 May to discuss ways of promoting human fraternity in environment, education, business, agriculture, media and health.

Two key sessions were co-chaired by Nobel Peace Laureates Prof Muhammad Yunus from Bangladesh and Dr. Rigoberta Menchù Tum from Guatemala, said a press release.

Thirty Nobel Peace Prize winners, scientists, economists, mayors, doctors, managers, workers, sports champions and ordinary citizens gathered there.

Opening the round table discussion, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said "when people disrespect peace and wage war, they set themselves in a direction diametrically opposed to creation and, by killing their fellow human beings, they not only assault the dignity of others but their own as well."

The official declaration from the Peace Round Table urged for "an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, to stop the killing and ensure safe and unrestricted access to humanitarian aid."

It further mentions, "We call on the international community to pursue with determination the two-state solution of one Israel and one Palestine, as well as an internationally guaranteed special status for the city of Jerusalem so that Israelis and Palestinians may finally live in peace and security.

The children of Gaza, nearly 14,000 killed by weapons of war or dying from hunger and disease, cannot shelter in hospitals that are being bombed and can no longer wait. Humanitarian aid must be permitted in Gaza. Hostages and political prisoners must be immediately released."

Muhammad Yunus said more than the weapons, the way that humanity thinks about themselves while they design their economic and social framework is the biggest threat to humanity.

"We have to rediscover ourselves as human beings with human values of sharing and caring and build the foundation of our economic and social framework which entails committing ourselves to creating a new civilization of three zeros: zero global warming, zero wealth concentration and zero unemployment through firmly installing the concept and practice of social business in our economic framework,

Yunus noted in particular the problem of today's "profit-maximising" civilisation, which is built on producing masses of "job seekers" and a handful of profit-maximizers with their wealth ballooning as a continuous process.

Bill Nelson, administrator of NASA and a former Democratic senator from Florida, highlighted how his career as an astronaut provoked a passion for human fraternity by repeatedly orbiting the earth and seeing the planet in its entirety.

"I did not see racial division from space, I did not see religious division, and I did not see political division. What I saw was we're all in this together as citizens of planet Earth,"

The participants met Pope Francis on 11 May in a private audience. Addressing some 350 participants in the second World Meeting on Human Fraternity, Pope Francis encouraged them to persevere in their efforts to promote human fraternity in a broken world.