The Catholic Arch Bishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, the Chief Executive of Pinnacle Communications Ltd, Sir Babatunde Lucky Omoluwa and other members of Religions for Peace (RFP) recently paid a visit to Pope Francis.
The Pope commended the activities of the group led by Cardinal Onaiyekan, which was in tandem with efforts being made by prominent world leaders and bodies to preach continuous world peace and avert any imminent war.
RFP whose 90 members recently took a trip to the Vatican City to meet and deliberate with the Catholic Pontiff and sovereign head of the Vatican, Pope Francis on how to sustain and ensure world peace is committed to the sustenance and the need for world peace and human development. The visit to the Catholic Pontiff by the 90 man delegation of the RFP came on the heels of their meeting in Rome on October 19, 2017.
Notable Nigerian businessman, Sir Lucky Omoluwa is a member of the Trustees of this world body. This to a large extent depicts his love for God, humanity and the peaceful coexistence of people all over the world.
Like an ancient mariner whose heartbeat dwarfs echoes of his incredible exploits, Omoluwa commands the awe of many of his peers and admirers. It is a statement of fact that he loves to give back to the society hence he combines his duty as a member Board of Trustees of RFP which is quite unprecedented being the only Nigerian on the board with overseeing his business.
With the need for peace bothering governments of nations, communities
and families, especially as brought to the fore during the recent
United Nations Summit in New York, the visit of RFP’s visit to the Pope is coming at the right time when the world
has witnessed and still living with avoidable conflicts, violence and wars that have combined to ruin lives, destroyed thousands of cities and rendered millions of people homeless. In spite of these, the
search for peace is still of paramount importance to all men of goodwill.
During the visit, The Pope told the RFP delegation, that ‘Religions
with their spiritual and moral resources have a specific and unique
role to play in building peace’ adding that they cannot be neutral,
much less ambiguous, where peace is concerned.
The Religions for Peace is a global network and the world’s largest and
most representative multi-coalition which advances common action among the world’s religious communities for peace. The organisation works to transform violent conflict, advance human development, promote just and harmonious societies and protect the earth.
The network comprises a world council of senior religious leaders from
all regions of the world, six regional inter-religious bodies and more
than 90 national ones. The Global Women of Faith Network and the
Global Interfaith Youth Network are also part of the RFP. Its
International Trustees are made up of lay individuals from 14
different countries that personally support RFP work through the
provision of needed competences, networking and resource mobilization.
Domiciled at the Church Centre for the United Nations in New York, RFP
is committed to building consensus on positive aspects of peace as
well as concrete actions to stop war, help eliminate extreme poverty
and protect the earth.
The actions of the organisation are not fashioned after religious
sectarianism but are multi-religious and public in character. The
various groups that make up RFP are led by representatives of diverse
religious communities and designed to provide platform for cooperative
action throughout the different levels of these religious communities
from grassroots to the senior-leadership. They also serve as bridges
between different religious communities that can help build trust,
reduce hostilities in areas of conflict as well as provide platform
for common positive action.
The RFP has some unique features. These unique features and method of operation are bounded by practical openness and continuous creativity through which it assist religious communities to correlate and work out a connection between their capacities for action and specific
challenges such as violent threat to peace. This approach helps to
disclose large, often hidden or under- utilized capacities for action
that lie within the proximities of religious cooperation while working
out the kind of capacity building needed for effective multi-
religious action.
Founded in 1970, the vision of the RFP is to make sure the world
religious communities co-operate effectively for peace. The RFP is
also committed to leading efforts to advance multi religious
cooperation for peace on global, regional, national and local levels
while ensuring that religious communities organized on these same
levels and exercise appropriate leadership and ownership of such
efforts. To achieve its set objectives and goals, RFP ensures that in
addition to dialogue, concrete actions are taken when and where
necessary towards the transformation of violent conflicts, promotion
of just and harmonious societies, advancement of human development and protection of the earth.
The organisation operates on five principles which are, Respect for
religious differences; Act on deeply held and widely shared values.
Preserve the identity of each religious community, honour the
different ways religious communities are organised; and support
locally led multi-religious structures.
