Written by Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service • Published: November 20, 2024

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis announced that he will beatify Blesseds Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati next year and that the Vatican will host a world meeting on children’s rights on Feb. 3.

The Pope will canonize Holy Acutis on April 27, at the Jubilee of the Young People in Rome, April 25-27, and Holy Frassati, at the Jubilee of the Young People, in Rome, July 28-August. 3.

The pope made the announcement during a general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Nov. 20, World Children’s Day.

The annual celebration marks the date when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

The Pope said that he wanted to announce that he would hold a world meeting in the Vatican “on the occasion of the International Day of Children and Adolescent Rights, which is celebrated today.”

The Pope said that the World Leaders Summit on Children’s Rights will be dedicated to the theme “Let us love and protect them” and will include experts and celebrities from different countries.

“This will be an opportunity to identify new ways to better assist and protect children who still lack rights and live in precarious conditions. “They are exploited, abused and suffer the dramatic consequences of wars,” he said.

Following the announcement, a small group of children involved in preparations for the Feb. 3 conclave joined the pope for a photo with Franciscan Father Enzo Fortunato, the church’s coordinator for the first World Children’s Day, held in Rome on May 25.

Pope Francis also established a new papal committee for World Children’s Day and appointed Father Fortunato as its chairman.

At the same time, the well-known decree said that the new committee would ensure that “World Children’s Day does not remain an isolated event” and that “pastoral care for children becomes an increasingly qualified priority from an evangelical and pedagogical point of view.” As a chirograph published by the Vatican on November 20.

The purpose of Earth Day, he said, is to make a concrete contribution to fulfilling “the church’s commitment to children” by calling out children’s rights and ensuring that the church’s pastoral activities demonstrate the same care and concern for children. There was Jesus.

Other goals include helping the Christian community become more of an “educational community capable of evangelizing first and foremost through the voice of the little ones” and helping the church become more “child-like” and drop “signs of power.” The decree stated that it would become “a warm and livable home for everyone, starting from children.”

Pope Francis said he wants the day to be celebrated at universal, regional, national and local levels, and so the committee will help support and organize these celebrations with the universal event to be held “probably every two years.”

“I entrust the preparation of World Children’s Day to regional and national bishops’ conferences, which will form local organizing committees,” he said.