VATICAN CITY — The Vatican confirmed Tuesday that Pope Francis will join other religious leaders at a prayer service for peace at Rome’s Colosseum later this month.
The Oct. 25 prayer meeting is part of a three-day interreligious summit called “The Cry for Peace,” organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio.
Sant’Egidio has held an international conference on the subject of peace every year since 1986, when St. Pope John Paul II convened the first World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, Italy.
The Catholic community of Sant’Egidio announced last month that Rome would be the location of this year’s meeting Oct. 23-25.
The conference’s final event will be the interreligious prayer service from 4:30 to 6:00 pm at the Colosseum. The famous monument is believed by some historians to be a site of early Christian martyrdom.
Representatives of the world’s major religions will take part in the prayer service and conference, which will include discussions on “an architecture of dialogue that protects and affirms peace, always and in every context,” according to the Sant’Egidio website.