Music will once again take center stage in Castel Gandolfo. Leo XIV will return this Wednesday, July 29, just two days after concluding his summer break, to preside over «Cantico di Pace», a prayer and music gathering organized by the Laudato si’ Center for Advanced Formation and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation to mark the eighth centenary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi.
The event will begin at 7:00 p.m. in the gardens of the Pontifical Villas and will center on a prayer for peace inspired by St. Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures, set against the backdrop of armed conflicts and humanitarian crises affecting various regions of the world.
Andrea Bocelli and a choir of 164 children from the Holy Land, Uganda, Haiti, and Italy
One of the highlights of the celebration will be the musical performance by tenor Andrea Bocelli alongside the ABF Voices choir, made up of 164 children and young people from the Holy Land, Uganda, Haiti, and Italy—specifically from Naples’s Rione Sanità neighborhood and the town of Camerino.
According to the organizers, many of these young people come from environments marked by war, poverty, or suffering, and through song they offer a testimony of reconciliation and hope.
The gathering will conclude ten days of living together for the choir members and their educators, brought together for the first time in an international experience aimed at fostering encounters among young people from different cultures and realities through music.
A prayer inspired by the Canticle of the Creatures
The initiative is part of the celebrations marking the eighth centenary of the passing of St. Francis of Assisi. The organizers recall that the saint left in the Canticle of the Creatures “a vision of universal fraternity, reconciliation, and praise of the Creator” that remains fully relevant eight centuries later.
During the event, Leo XIV will join the participants in raising a prayer asking for the gift of peace in the world, drawing precisely on that message of universal fraternity.
Employees of the Holy See invited
Employees of the dicasteries of the Holy See, the Governorate of Vatican City State, and the various bodies of the Roman Curia have been invited to the event.
The invitation also seeks to offer those who work in the service of the Pope a moment of prayer and fellowship to renew the Church’s commitment to peace, reconciliation, and the dignity of every person.
At the end of the celebration, representatives from each of the choir delegations will present the Pope with a gift from their country as a token of gratitude for his message of peace and fraternity. Afterward, the participants will share a moment of fellowship in the Laudato si’ Borgo itself.