February 4 marked the International Day of Human Fraternity, a day established by the United Nations (UN) to commemorate the anniversary of the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” which was co-signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam Ahmad al-Tayyeb on February 4, 2019.The document stated that the “pluralism and diversity” of religions is “willed by God.”
On Thursday, in an online event, Francis joined forces with Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb once more, delivering speeches to mark the day commemorating their document. In his speech, Pope Francis avoided making any reference to the Church, or religion, and only made one vague reference to God. Instead he repeated the theme of earthly “fraternity,” which he proposed as the solution to the world’s problems.
“Either we are fratelli — if I may — or everything collapses. It is the frontier. The frontier on which we have to build; it is the challenge of our century; it is the challenge of our times,” he declared.
He highlighted the fact that this concept of global fraternity must be built “in respect of our different cultures and traditions.”
“It is the moment for listening,” Francis continued. “It is the moment for sincere acceptance. It is the moment for certainty that a world without brothers and sisters is a world of enemies.”
“We cannot say: either brothers or not brothers,” he continued. “Let us state it clearly: either brothers or enemies. Because disregard is a very subtle form of hostility. There is no need for war to make enemies. Disregard is enough.”
The online event builds upon themes from the recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, in which Pope Francis presented an almost entirely earthly view of human fraternity, and promoted the global governance of nations, whilst referring to the Abu Dhabi document. Fratelli Tutti received praise from the Masonic Lodge of Spain, as well as from the pro-LGBT dissident priest, Father James Martin S.J.
Meanwhile, former papal nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, stated that whilst the document was welcomed by “the applause of God’s enemies” that it “confirms the inexorable abandonment of the Church’s evangelizing mission.”
“The supernatural dimension is totally absent, just as absent is the reference to the necessity of belonging to the Mystical Body of Christ which is the Holy Church in order to achieve eternal salvation,” Viganò wrote, adding that “there is a serious distortion of the concept of ‘brotherhood’: for a Catholic, this is only in Christ possible, if one has God as the Father, through Baptism,” while for Pope Francis, this “would be realized by the mere fact of belonging to humanity.”
The Abu Dhabi document, which the International Day of Human Fraternity commemorates, has also been marked by controversy, namely for teaching that a diversity of religions is willed by God. After its promotion, Bishop Athanasius Schneider later privately received a clarification from Francis, who mentioned that the Divine willing of different religions referred to the “permissive will of God.”
Schneider urged that a correction be made, saying that the phrase “leads ultimately to a denial of the truth of the unique and obligatory character of the Faith in Christ, which is commanded by Divine Revelation.”
According to Bishop Schneider, in implementing the Abu Dhabi document without correcting its erroneous affirmation on the diversity of religions, “men in the Church not only betray Jesus Christ as the only Savior of mankind and the necessity of His Church for eternal salvation, but also commit a great injustice and sin against love of neighbor.”
Speaking to LifeSiteNews the day after the document was promulgated in 2019, a Dominican theologian explained that the passage “in its obvious sense is false, and in fact heretical.”
Peace award given to UN Secretary General
A key part of the online event was to give the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity to two recipients, one of whom was the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The jury committee for the award announced that they had been impressed by his “courage, extraordinary effort, vision, commitment, humanism.”
“He chose the path of peace building, the path of leading for the benefit of others, of putting people first as every true leader should,” the video’s voice over declared.
The award praised Guterres’s response to the COVID-19 virus, as well as his focus on climate change measures. Pope Francis congratulated Guterres for “all the efforts he has made for peace. A peace that can be obtained only with a fraternal heart.” Guterres in turn praised Francis’s “leadership…pushing human kind to come together, in unity, in dialogue, to promote peace, to promote fraternity.”
Despite Francis praising Guterres for his “fraternal heart,” the U.N. chief has a record of opposing the Church’s teaching in life and morality issues. Most recently, Guterres used the COVID-19 crisis as a means to promote access to abortion worldwide.
Meanwhile Guterres claimed that COVID had alerted the world to a system of “patriarchy” and a “male-dominated culture which damages everyone.”
“The pandemic is only demonstrating what we all know: that millennia of patriarchy have resulted in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture which damages everyone – women, men, girls and boys,” he claimed.
He has also championed LGBT ideology, calling on the UN to “redouble” its efforts to promote and defend LGBT issues and the “LGBTI community.”
Despite Guterres’s commitment to abortion and the LGBT agenda, Pope Francis joined with the Muslim Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, to reward Guterres for his “fraternal heart,” and his work for “peace.”
