Pope Francis’ message of hope is to reach the North Pole in an unheard-of walk through the Artic by the hand of Michael Haddad, a Lebanese youth who moves with an exoskeleton, due to an accident in his childhood. Haddad will take with him, as a message of the Pope, a blessed version of the book “Why Are You Afraid, Don’t You Have Faith?, produced in a special edition by the Holy See’s Dicastery for Communication.
The meeting was co-organized by the United Nations Program for Development (UNPD), the Embassy of Italy to the Holy See, the Institute for Global Dialogue, and the Culture of Encounter. It will also enjoy the participation of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Communication and take place on Friday, December 17, 2021, at 11:00 am at the Embassy’s headquarters in Rome.
According to a note of the Dicastery for Communication, at the end of the walk, Hadda will leave a small book of 6×8 centimeters in the bunker of seeds of Svalbard, the biggest and safest in the world, located in Norway, 1,300 kilometers beyond the Artic Polar Circle.
The First Time a Message of the Pope Reaches the North Pole
So, for the first time, a message of Pope Francis will reach the North Pole by the hand of an ambassador of Italy, by the hand of a goodwill ambassador, and as a seed of hope, it will stay for posterity in the biggest and safest shelter of the world dedicated to safeguarding the planet’s biodiversity.
Haddad, a symbol of hope and faith, whose message is focused on the need for urgent action against climate change, the care of our common home, and inclusion in face of inequality, will show his commitment to receiving the message at a meeting in the Embassy of Italy to the Holy See.
“Hope is daring, it is able to look beyond personal comfort, little certainties, and compensations that stretch the horizon, to open to great ideals that make life more beautiful and worthy,” said the Pope in the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti.
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
