UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to meet Pope Francis

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis will receive United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in audience in the Vatican Friday. The UN chief is in Rome for an annual meeting of all the heads of the UN agencies.

As his press spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, tells Vatican Radio’s Tracey McClure, it is not the first time the UN Secretary General will meet Pope Francis – or his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI:

“He hosted Pope Benedict in New York during his visit to the United Nations which was a great honor for the Secretary General and last year he met with Pope Francis here in the Vatican. What makes this visit special is that Rome is hosting, today and tomorrow, the annual meeting of all the heads of the UN agencies, so some fifty senior UN officials - from the head of the World Bank, to the World Health Organization - are meeting with the Secretary General and he’s bringing his whole delegation for a meeting with Pope Francis. So, it’s a unique occasion for the senior-most leadership of the United Nations system to meet with Pope Francis.”

Listen to Tracey McClure’s interview with Stéphane Dujarric which touches on hot spots like South Sudan, Syria and Central African Republic:


“The visit with Pope Francis was requested because we were meeting here in Rome,” Dujarric explains when asked how the audience came about. “I think the Holy See and the United Nations may not agree on a number of issues on the global agenda, but I think where they do agree, where the Secretary General and the Holy Father meet, is on the fight against poverty, on the fight against inequality, against (ex)clusion, against forgetting those who are suffering. We communicate in different ways, we work in different ways, but I think on these issues, there is a meeting of the minds. And a meeting of the goals. At this very stage in the United Nations’ agenda, we are now talking about the next development goals, the next sustainable development goals and how we fight against poverty and against inequality. So I think … it’s an interesting time for the Secretary General and Pope Francis to meet.”

Mr. Ban Ki Moon’s visit with Pope Francis comes on the heels of two sets of UN committee hearings in Geneva this year in which the Holy See has been asked to present its record on human rights issues. The Holy See’s delegation presented a report on its adherence to the Convention against Torture just this week, and another in January on its respect of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Asked if there is any link between Friday’s meeting and the Geneva hearings, Dujarric affirms “there’s absolutely no link.”

The United Nations system, he explains, “as a whole, is big and is complicated - and as part of that system, you have the human rights mechanisms that are based in Geneva. You have the High Commissioner for Human Rights and then you have what we call the Treaty bodies - so, the different committees that are representing each treaty – whether it’s on the Rights of the Child or the Convention against Torture. These are member states-driven committees. There are representatives of member states and experts – they go about their own calendar. The Secretary General doesn’t check with them; they don’t check with him. And he has no practical authority over the work of these treaty bodies. So I think it is exactly what it is: a coincidence. Sometimes I think people are, find that it’s a little strange, but it really is um, it is a coincidence. So a lot of different institutions in the UN work on their own calendars.”

South Sudan: a “man-made humanitarian disaster”

Earlier this week, Ban Ki-moon was in Juba, South Sudan where he appealed for peace between warring sides so that much-needed humanitarian aid can reach the suffering population and allow farmers to plant food.

A UN report last month called for 230 million dollars in international aid, and showed the country will face one of the most devastating famines to date “in a manner of weeks if radical action to alleviate widespread hunger isn’t taken before the planting season.”

Dujarric gives background on the crisis: “What you have in South Sudan is a man-made humanitarian disaster and it is because the President Salva Kiir and the former Vice President Riek Machar have had a falling out which the term is probably too simple, but these two men who were brothers in arms for years, to fight for the independence of their country, are now fighting against each other. And the people are suffering and there are no issues that these two men cannot solve by sitting around the same table. The Secretary General was very pleased that during his visit that he saw Salva Kiir; he spoke by phone with Riek Machar. Both of them agreed to meet tomorrow (Friday) in Addis Ababa to start a political dialogue. Their problems are not insurmountable. They have to be solved. They have to be solved in order for the people to stop suffering and to be able to go home.”

“If there is no pause in the fighting, and what we are calling for is a thirty day pause in the fighting, so the farmers can plant. There is a very high and probable risk of wide spread famine. This is the rainy season, this is the planting season. People need to feel safe so they can go home and they can plant. Already in South Sudan, almost half of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance and we are not able to reach everyone of them. We are able to reach about half of them because of the ongoing fighting. It is a critical situation. The money that’s needed, 230 million dollars - in the scope of all the money that governments have - is nothing. And we need people, we need governments, to help us to pay for the humanitarian assistance.”