At 11.30 this morning, a press conference was livestreamed from the Holy See Press Office, Saint Pius X Hall, Via dell’Ospedale 1, to present the World Meeting on Human Fraternity “Not Alone” (#NotAlone), scheduled to take place in Rome, in Saint Peter’s Square, on 10 June.

The speakers were: His Eminence Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican, vicar general of His Holiness for Vatican City and president of the Fabric of Saint Peter; Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), via live link; Carlo Conti, RAI presenter; and Flora Matti Naeem, doctoral candidate in archivistics and biblioeconomy at “La Sapienza” University of Rome.

The following is the intervention of His Eminence Cardinal Mauro Gambetti:

Intervention of His Eminence Cardinal Mauro Gambetti

The World Meeting on Human Fraternity, entitled #NotAlone, is a good opportunity to rediscover the value of fraternity: 10 June 2023 will be a great day of celebration and union inspired by Pope Francis’ Encyclical Fratelli tutti, superseding a vision that binds social friendship to ties of ethnicity and blood. The symbol of this communion will be the great embrace in which young people from all over the world will be gathered in the Colonnade of Saint Peter’s Square.

The #NotAlone meeting seeks to involve everyone: the young people who will participate, but also their families, schools, the Nobel laureates invited and, above all, those who today find themselves in difficulty, at the margins of society. We want to propose an alternative to isolation, and to restore human dignity to the centre of our culture. We are people in relation to each other, every day we walk pieces of the road together: no-one can be left behind or excluded. Only by overcoming selfishness can we aspire to build a more just and equitable society, in which we can live in peace with each other. But for this to happen, we need the commitment to want it and say it together, and to foster a culture of human fraternity.

I will therefore give you the appointment of 10 June 2023 in Saint Peter’s Square, to hold each other in this symbolic embrace and to relaunch, from Saint Peter’s Square, a new hope called fraternity.