The Vatican will host a two-day high-level international symposium on a nuclear-weapons-free world this weekend. The conference is organised by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and is on the theme ‘Prospects for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament’.
On 10 November, Pope Francis will receive the participants at an audience that will take place in the Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace, and will give an official address.
The international conference will be attended by eleven Nobel peace laureates, top United Nations and NATO officials, leading experts, and heads of major foundations and of civil society organizations, as well representatives of several bishops conferences, Christian denominations and other faiths.
Particularly significant will be the presence of Masako Wada, Assistant Secretary General of Nihon Hidankyo, one of the last survivors of the Hiroshima’s nuclear attack, who will represent the victims of nuclear weapons and of nuclear experiments.
This Vatican conference represents the first global gathering on atomic disarmament after the approval of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, signed by the Holy See and 121 other countries of the international community in New York on 7 July 2017.
In announcing the conference on 30 October, Greg Burke, the Director of the Holy See Press Office said, ‘The Holy Father is working with determination to promote the conditions necessary for a world without nuclear arms.’
Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Cardinal Peter Turkson, added that ‘the event responds to the priorities of Pope Francis to take action for world peace and to use the resources of creation for a sustainable development and to improve the quality of life for all, individuals and countries, without discrimination’.
ENDS
Source: Vatican Radio