Br. Gianmaria Polidoro's invitation to peace

At the end of the first EcuFilm Fest, Cinema for Interreligious Dialogue, in Maenza February 23-25, Br. Gianmaria Polidoro - who met Reagan at the White House in '84 and also went to the Kremlin to plead for an end to the Cold War - sent letters to the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, and the patriarchs of Moscow and Kyiv to invite them to the Umbrian city.

Nearly forty years ago, in February 1984, Br. Gianmaria, with three other Franciscans, also Conventuals and Capuchins, from the International Center for Peace Among Peoples of Assisi, made a pilgrimage to Washington and Moscow to ask in God's name for an end to the Cold War. They met at the White House the President Ronald Reagan and at the Kremlin with the then acting head of state Vasily Kuznestov (Andropov had recently died and his successor Chernenko had not yet been named). Today Father Gianmaria, a 90-year-old still animated by the spirit of Assisi, who founded the Assisi Pax International Association in 1997, during the first EcuFilm Fest, Cinema for Interreligious Dialogue, held in Maenza, Latina, February 23-25, 2023, wrote to the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Putin and Zelenski, and also to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and the Patriarch of Kyiv, to invite them to Assisi to "restore peace in the world," as St. Francis did with the Portiuncula and the church of San Damiano.

"I ask that they come to Assisi to meet," is how Father Polidoro summarized his message to Vatican Radio - Vatican News, "to be able to say to the world: we dream of a peace that can be extended to all of Europe, to the whole world. And Father Polidoro, who in Geneva, in November 1985, with the group of four friars also met the delegations of Reagan and Gorbačëv, and with his Association awards every year personalities from all over the world committed to peace with the Golden Palm of Assisi pax, asks the Italian president that he guarantee the reception of the political and religious leaders of Russia and Ukraine in Assisi so that "they can find that peace that the whole world is waiting for at this moment."

And as a man of faith, he turns to the representatives of the Churches of Moscow and Kyiv "so that they may be of help in prayer and exhortation, so that all of us may obtain that peace that our Lord Jesus Christ preached, when he said, 'I give you my peace, not as the world gives peace, but as God gives peace.'

Alessandro Di Bussolo

From www.vaticannews.it

Br. Polidoro's meeting with President Reagan in 1984