The Errors of V-II continue: Vatican holds meeting on ‘human fraternity’

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Vatican meeting on ‘human fraternity’ seeks ‘answers’ for the future but is silent on faith
The Vatican event, titled ‘Be Human,’ gathers secular leaders, Nobel laureates, and various professionals to discuss ‘proposals for a fraternal planet,’ drawing from Pope Francis’ 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti.



Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, May 7, 2024

May 7, 2024
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican is partnering with the Fratelli Tutti Foundation to host the second “World Meeting on Human Fraternity,” which will see secular leaders and Nobel laureates attempt to “find answers” to build “the future.”

Announced via a press conference May 7, details of the May 10-11 “World Meeting on Human Fraternity” were revealed principally by Cardinal Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica Mauro Gambetti. He spoke of a need to “bring attention to the world” of the need for “fraternity,” expressing his hope that the event would assist people to “rediscover” aspects such as “human dialogue.”

“The experience,” said Gambetti, is intended to “renew the charter of humanity.”

This week’s event is entitled “Be Human,” and is jointly organized by the Fratelli Tutti Foundation – born out of Pope Francis’ 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti – and the Vatican.

It will draw numerous Nobel Peace Prize laureates to events around Rome and the Vatican. Businessmen, political activists, economist Jeffrey Sachs, and Nelson Mandela’s wife Graca Machel Mandela will also be present.

The 2024 event’s logo. Credit: Fratelli Tutti Foundation.

A series of “round table” events will take place across the city and in the Holy See, with the Nobel laureates and other ranking participants divided accordingly amongst the various events which “will once again make proposals for a fraternal planet.”

The personalities will discuss “how to promote the value of fraternity among people at a time when war and fear dominate our days.”

As noted by the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, “personalities from around the world, Nobel Laureates, scientists, artists, professors, mayors, doctors, managers, workers, sports champions will try to find answers.”

Such answers “may be different, they may not be unequivocal. But they will be the building blocks of the future,” stated the foundation.

Pope Francis will lead an event with children in the Vatican’s New Synod Hall, with the event specifically arranged to give focus to the voice of children as the next generation. Francis will deliver “a reflection on the theme of fraternity, which is particularly dear to him,” the Fratelli Tutti Foundation noted.

A closing concert will take place at 9:30 p.m. on May 11, on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. Among other names, it will feature Italian composer Giovanni Allevi, Italian actress and TV host Eleonora Daniele, and pro-LGBT U.S. country singer Garth Brooks.

No mention was made of involving religion generally, or the Catholic faith specifically, in the discussions.

The Fratelli Tutti Foundation stated that this 2024 event was “following last year’s success,” referring to the first World Day of Human Fraternity in 2023 held at St. Peter’s Basilica, which was billed as a means to demonstrate that “human fraternity is possible.”

The highlight of the 2023 event was the signing of the newly composed document on human fraternity. With Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin representing the Pope, he joined 30 Nobel Peace Prize laureates in signing the “Declaration of Human Fraternity,” which drew from Fratelli Tutti, and also avoided any mention of Christ, God, or Catholicism. 

Rather than promoting religion as the solution to any of the numerous global crises referenced in the document, the 2023 text posited man as the answer to such problems: “Our children, our future can only thrive in a world of peace, justice and equality, to the benefit of the single human family: only fraternity can generate humanity.”

However, it appears the the May meeting, while given heavy emphasis by the Vatican, is itself oriented towards a September 2025 meeting on fraternity, which will work “to establish a worldwide Pact of Fraternity.”

READ: Pope Francis silent about Christ, Catholicism in new messages on anniversary of Abu Dhabi document

The foundation’s description of the 2023 World Day of Human Fraternity as a “success” is of note, given that – as this correspondent previously noted – the event spectacularly failed to draw large crowds, despite the obvious amount of money and effort spent in organizing it.

Nor – it appears – was the document on human fraternity of any particular efficacy given that the 2024 event is described as preparing for the signing of a new “Pact of Fraternity” in 2025.

Pope Francis’ Fratelli Tutti – which is widely argued to promote religious indifferentism, highlighting the theme of “dialogue” – has become an increasingly key aspect of the current pontificate, becoming the “go-to” reference text for all such events relating to the topic of “fraternity.” Along with the equally controversial 2019 Abu Dhabi document on human fraternity, the two texts have taken center stage for Francis, despite the fact that proposition of “fraternity” promoted is seen as problematic for Catholics. 

READ: Pope’s controversial Abu Dhabi document is actively forming UN global policy

The Abu Dhabi text has been described as seemingly seeking to “overturn the doctrine of the Gospel” due to its promotion of equality of religions in a form of “fraternity.” Fratelli Tutti has also been similarly condemned by former papal nuncio to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, as promoting a “blasphemous” form of brotherhood without God as well as “religious indifferentism.”

According to Church historian Roberto de Mattei, when “fraternity” is divorced from Christian charity, “far from constituting an element of cohesion in society,” it “becomes the source of its disintegration.” He argued that “if men, in the name of fraternity, are forced to live together without an end that gives meaning to their sense of belonging, the ‘ark’ becomes a prison.”

Indeed, after Fratelli Tutti’s publication, it was welcomed by the Masonic Lodge of Spain, which stated it was “the latest encyclical” of Pope Francis in which he “embraces the Universal Fraternity, the great principle of Modern Freemasonry.”

“Pope Francis’ last encyclical shows how far the current Catholic Church is from its former positions,” the lodge wrote.

Fratelli Tutti has also been posited as linking the Vatican to international, globalist ideologies. At the 2022 delayed Davos World Economic Forum meeting, a Vatican official declared that the Catholic Church is “committed to the various issues considered at the forum,” citing Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti as examples of how the Catholic Church was adhering to the globalist agenda on particular issues.

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Even before the Second Vatican Council formally opened, the Council Fathers published a 'Message to the World' embracing many of the errors noted above, particularly concerning the modern, freemasonic interpretation of 'fraternity.'

The following are taken from SiSiNoNo's The Errors of Vatican II:

Errors in the Council Fathers' "Message to the World"

The "Message to the World" was promulgated at the start of the Council. [Archbishop Lefebvre was one of the few to criticize it.-Ed.] In miniature, it contained the pastoral line of thought that would be developed to the fullest in Gaudium et Spes. "Human good," the "dignity of man" as man, "peace between people," a pastoral in which the preoccupation with "human good," "the dignity of man," as man, "the peace between people," are its central concerns, and left aside is man's conversion to Christ:

While we hope that through the Council's labors the light of faith shines more clearly and alive, we await a spiritual renaissance from which also comes a happy impulse that favors human well-being, that is, scientific invention, progress of the arts, technology, and a greater diffusion of culture.

"Human well-being" is characterized according to the century's reigning ideas, i.e., scientific, artistic, technological, and cultural progress.5 Should the Second Vatican Council have become so preoccupied with such things? Should it have expressed hope for the increase of these solely earthly "blessings," always short-lived, often deceptive, in place of those eternal ones founded on perennial values taught by the Church over the centuries? No wonder that, following this brand of pastoral, instead of a new "splendor" of the faith, a grave and persistent crisis has arisen?

The actual theological error, in the proper sense of error, occurs at the close of the "Message to the World" where it is said: "We invite all to collaborate with us in order to install in the world a more well ordered civil life and a greater fraternity." This is not Catholic doctrine. Any anticipation of the eternal kingdom in this world was constituted only by the Catholic Church, by the visible Church Militant, the earthly element of the Mystical Body of Christ, which grows slowly, not withstanding the opposition of "the Prince of this world." The Mystical Body of Christ increases, but not strictly through the "union of all men of good will," and of all humanity under the banner of "progress."

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Another example of a false idea of fraternity permeating and being promoted in the Vatican II documents - which Pope Francis is all too eager to implement, taking from the same above linked SiSiNoNo series of articles, The Errors of Vatican II:

As expressed in Gaudium et Spes §61, the optimistic vision of man led the Council to present a definition of universal man or "the whole person" which is not Catholic:

Nevertheless it remains each man's duty to preserve a view of the whole human person in which the values of intellect, will, conscience and fraternity are pre-eminent. These values are all rooted in God the Creator and have been wonderfully restored and elevated in Christ.

From a logical point of view, this is an incoherent portrait, because intelligence, will, and conscience are faculties of man, rather than values, whereas fraternity can only be a value. Nevertheless, they are all placed on the same level. But as for charity, the Christian value par excellence, where is it? Where are humility, obedience, the spirit of sacrifice, the desire to please God in everything? Asserted again is that Jesus came "to elevate man," "curing" all of his imperfect qualities, whereas He was incarnated not to exalt our qualities, but to cure our infirmities, so that we might be able to be cured of these by believing in Him: "...For I came not to call the just, but sinners" (Mk. 2: 17).[/b]

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Here is even greater clarity of the distortion promoted by the Second Vatican Council: 

Gaudium et Spes §11 expresses the relativist perspective that claims to seek to "purify" the world's values in order to link them to Christ:

The People of God believes that it is led by the Lord's Spirit, who fills the earth. Motivated by this faith, it labors to decipher authentic signs of God's presence and purpose in the happenings, needs and desires in which this People has a part along with other men of our age. For faith throws a new light on everything, manifests God's design for man's total vocation, and thus directs the mind to solutions which are fully human.


This Council, first of all, wishes to assess in this light those values which are most highly prized today, and to relate them to their divine source. For insofar as they stem from endowments conferred by God on man, these values are exceedingly good. Yet they are often wrenched from their rightful function by the taint in man's heart, and hence stand in need of purification.

What "values" are invoked here? It's easy to see they are indicated in GS §39. Here again, the Council wants us to believe that we shall find them "purified" in the Kingdom of God, and that they are "the dignity of man, fraternal unity, and liberty" which must serve "universal progress in human and Christian freedom" (Lumen Gentium §36).But it is necessary to comment:

1) These laicist values are said to be "exceedingly good." The purely lay ideal of progress, which includes the idea of humanity's "education" through "reason alone" and exalts worldly happiness and earthly well being, is totally anti-Christian and cannot be "exceedingly good." Nor can "human dignity," "universal brotherhood," and "liberty" be "exceedingly good" since they are the French Revolution's well-known triad. Therefore, under the banner of the "rights of man," they signal Deism's and Illuminism-Masonry's philosophy of rationalism, which inspired the famous Charter of Rights based on "Immortal Principles."

2) The same text that asserts that these values are "good," although "deflected from the rightful order," is the result of an equivocation and relativism that has spread widely among liberal Catholics as well as among their modernist and neo-modernist counterparts. It is well known that these values, as was said about the French Revolution, "apply Christianity's ideas which, however, await their application and are not recognized as such before that application" (Romano Amerio, Iota Unum). Actually, laicist-driven fraternity, equality and liberty are a distortion of their Catholic equivalents because they derive from a vision of the world based solely on man, seen as being exempt from the stain of original sin, and, so, superior, exalted, and proud. Consequently, these values are opposed in themselves to the equivalent Catholic ones, which they negate and attack in every way. This does not even include a discussion of the ideal of progress which, in concept and meaning, is alien to Catholicism. Actually:

>Christian freedom is interior and comes from faith in Christ (Jn. 8:31-32). It has nothing to do with freedom of the individual, who makes every choice in terms of absolute self-determination, in the absence of all law and constraint. This is the basis of contemporary democracy and the "rights of man." And it is precisely to this laicist liberty-value that the Council continually referred.

i. From the Christian point of view, brotherhood among all men is authentically felt because all men come from God the Father, Creator. It presupposes belief in the Blessed Trinity and is nourished by love of neighbor loved for the love of God, not for man's alleged "dignity." This means that we are connected, each of us to the other, because we are tainted by original sin and are all sinners.

ii. Therefore, Catholic brotherhood has nothing in common with the political type of brotherhood based on the ideology of egalitarianism, which spread through the world beginning with the American and French revolutions, and which is also the foundation of contemporary democracy. This is why it is legitimate to judge laicist equality as the reigning political value. Oppositely, Catholic equality has always been our equality as sinners before God, and of Christians before the promises of our Lord, thanks to which they are made potential "co-heirs" of the Kingdom (Eph. 3:6).

iii. In the Catholic meaning, equality, fraternity and liberty are, above all, religious values, founded on revealed Truth. The same values, such as the world defines and understands them are, above all, political, the fruits of the Deism and rationalism of the Enlightenment, and of a world willfully hostile to the Catholic Faith. Therefore, the Council's desire "to purify" these values appears to be stripped of all meaning. How should they be "purified?" In order to be in harmony with ageless teaching, the Council would have had to condemn them because of their opposition to their authentic Christian meaning. In reality, there was no "purification." As we have seen, there was only the bastardization of the Church's doctrine through its adapting these values of the world. And that was done as a result of adopting the false idea of man, his "dignity," his "vocation," all of these taken from a doctrinally erroneous idea of the Incarnation and Redemption. It was an idea of man that, rather than being "purified" of its laicist origin, introduced "humanism" born of revolutionary ideas into the Church's doctrine.