Tomorrow, the International Forum of Catholic Action (IFCA) will once again accompany the act of peace by Pope Francis in the Vatican Gardens with prayer, commemorating the 10 years since the meeting of 8 June 2014 organised by the pontiff himself together with the then President of Israel, Simon Peres, the President of the Palestinian Authority, Maḥmūd ʿAbbās – Abu Mazen and in the presence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I.
Every year, in memory of this event, on 8 June at 1 p.m., IFCA, together with the Italian Catholic Action, the Argentine Catholic Action, and the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organisations (WUCWO), proposes to Catholic Action associations all over the world and to men and women of good will to stop for a minute, wherever they are – in the office, in the factory, at school, in the neighbourhood, in the hospital – to invoke together the gift of peace.
The theme chosen for the 10th anniversary is ‘We want peace. An urgency, a right, a need‘.
On the IFCA website you can find a concise explanation of the initiative, which Pope Francis has often mentioned over the years during the Angelus prayer or through Vatican social channels, in 4 languages: Italian, English, French and Spanish.
The 2024 ‘One Minute for Peace’ poster, with the simple logo combining a reference to the peace symbols of the dove and the olive tree with the colour circle of the world open to sharing, is available in 29 languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Zulu, Urdu, Igbo, Hindi, Burmese, Hebrew and Arabic.
‘It is a call to all and every person,’ says Eva Fernández Mateo, coordinator of the International Forum of Catholic Action (IFCA) and president of the Spanish Accion Catolica General, ‘to pray for peace and to motivate a commitment that requires the participation of individuals and societies in the logic of the Beatitudes, on the path of dialogue, for a culture of encounter, of the embrace between persons and between peoples. Unfortunately, in these 10 years, conflicts in the world have not diminished and new fronts have been opened at the doors of Europe and in the beloved Holy Land. Even if the paths of mediation sometimes seem closed, as believers and as conscious citizens of many countries, we want to insist, together with Pope Francis, on the appeal for a more just and free world in which no one is denied the first essential condition for living: peace”.
Video appeals for peace are available from:
Albania, Argentina, Brazil, Burundi, Philippines, Guatemala, Iraq, Italy, Malta, Mexico, Myanmar, Paraguay, Rwanda, Romania, Senegal, Spain, United States of America, Holy Land, Ukraine, Venezuela.
The invitatione for IFCA’s 8 June initiative was relaunched by, among others:
Dicastery for Laity Family and Life
Federation Asia Bishops’ Conference (FABC)
Conferencia Episcopal Argentina (CEA)
Catholic Bishops’ Conference Philippines (CBCP)
You can follow the initiative on social channels Facebook and Instagram – #unminutoporlapaz and IFCA..
More information:
https://www.catholicactionforum.org
