(Vatican Radio) Hindu prayers, Sufi meditation, Urdu Christian songs and Chinese children’s dancing: those are just a few of the wide variety of religious and cultural activities on offer this Sunday at a ‘Peace and Unity’ event in Manchester Cathedral.The afternoon event, organised in conjunction with the city’s interfaith network, comes just two months after a terror attack at Manchester Arena which killed 23 people and injured hundreds of others.The goal of the ‘Peace and Unity’ event is to celebrate the cultural diversity of the city, which counts over two hundred different linguistic and ethnic groups.Philippa Hitchen talked to one of the organisers, Rev. Rogers Govender, dean of the Anglican cathedral that is hosting the event with the hashtag #WeStandTogether….Listen: Govender says this is the second year in a row that he has helped to organize such a cultural event to bring people together from the city’s diverse relig...
(Vatican Radio) Hindu prayers, Sufi meditation, Urdu Christian songs and Chinese children’s dancing: those are just a few of the wide variety of religious and cultural activities on offer this Sunday at a ‘Peace and Unity’ event in Manchester Cathedral.
The afternoon event, organised in conjunction with the city’s interfaith network, comes just two months after a terror attack at Manchester Arena which killed 23 people and injured hundreds of others.
The goal of the ‘Peace and Unity’ event is to celebrate the cultural diversity of the city, which counts over two hundred different linguistic and ethnic groups.
Philippa Hitchen talked to one of the organisers, Rev. Rogers Govender, dean of the Anglican cathedral that is hosting the event with the hashtag #WeStandTogether….
Listen:
Govender says this is the second year in a row that he has helped to organize such a cultural event to bring people together from the city’s diverse religious communities.
He says that in the face of the terrible events that have taken place in Manchester and beyond, with the intended desire to divide communities, this ‘Peace and Unity’ event wishes “to affirm our diversity and to celebrate it” instead.
Govender says the city is largely made up of immigrants from all over the world and notes that he himself is an immigrant from South Africa. He describes it as “a great tragedy when terrorists, and others on the far right and so on, seek to divide our community”.
Faith community cooperation
He says the various faith communities in the city “work very well together”, adding that he is involved in a number of interfaith events, aimed at encouraging the different communities to engage in the life of the city.
While the terror attack at Manchester Arena, located near the cathedral, left people fearful, Govender says in the aftermath of the atrocity religious communities and faith leaders “worked very hard together” with Town Hall authorities and local and national governments to hold the community together. “I would like to think that we have largely succeeded in doing that”, he adds.
Aftermath of terror attack
Directly following the suicide bombing, he says, faith leaders were available to speak with people on the streets. Since the cathedral was shut down for two days, services were held outside, including a prayer vigil in front of the Town Hall, while Christian and Muslim leaders gathered together to lay flowers and tributes to the victims. Govender says he also hosted a meeting at the cathedral where political and religious representatives prayed for all those affected by the tragedy.
The ‘Peace and Unity’ event, Govender concludes, aims to be “very family friendly”, encouraging children to read, dance, listen to stories or do crafts together. He urges people to sign up on the website www.peace-and-unity-17@eventbrite.co.uk
Pope Francis shared a stage with Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on May 12, 2023, to speak at a two-day conference on "The General State of the Birth Rate," held at Conciliazione Auditorium close to the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNARome Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).The Vatican announced on Thursday that Pope Francis will speak at an event on Italy's demographic crisis as the country's birth rate sits at a historic low.Pope Francis will address "The General State of the Birth Rate" conference on May 10 at the Conciliazione Auditorium close to the Vatican.The two-day event organized by the Forum of Family Associations and the Foundation for Births seeks to address the 50 years of steady decline in births across Europe, and especially in Italy, and what can be done to reverse it. Births in Italy dropped to a historic low in 2023. Italy's national statistics bureau recorded 379,000 births last year, a 3.6% decline from 2022 and a 34.2% drop from 200...
Father Paul Tatu Mothobi, a member the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata (CSS/ Stigmatines) and former Media and Communications Officer of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC), was found dead of gunshot wounds in South Africa, on April 27, 2024. / Credit: SACBCACI Africa, May 2, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).Father Paul Tatu Mothobi, a member the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata (CSS/Stigmatines) and former media and communications officer of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC), was reportedly murdered last weekend in South Africa.According to a notice from the congregation's South Africa-based provincial secretary, Father Jeremia Thami Mkhwanazi, Tatu died on Saturday, April 27, "after sustaining a gunshot."Tatu, a native of Lesotho's Archdiocese of Maseru, was ministering in South Africa's Archdiocese of Pretoria. According to reports, his lifeless body was found with gunshot wounds in his car on a national road in South Africa, which r...
God "is our peace" and "prayer leads us to meet him," said the archbishop of Bogotá, Cardinal Luis José Rueda Aparicio. / Credit: Colombian Bishops Conference / ScreenshotACI Prensa Staff, May 2, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).The Colombian Bishops' Conference (CEC by its Spanish acronym) has called on all Catholics to join on May 3, Day of the Holy Cross, in a day of prayer for peace and reconciliation in the country."The call is made directly by the bishops and is based on recognizing the serious humanitarian crisis that multiple territories face amid armed conflict and other types of violence, as well as the complex sociopolitical panorama that the nation is experiencing today, permeated by division and polarization," the CEC announced on its website.Since Pope Francis' visit to Colombia in September 2017 and his meeting with victims of the armed conflict, the Church in that country has established a National Day of Prayer for Reconciliation and Peace to be celebrated every May...