Pope Francis To Be Awarded The Nobel Peace Prize For 2013!

BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
The Triumph of Death (detail)
c. 1562

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2013
 

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2013 is to be awarded to Holy Roman Pontiff Francis for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Francis's vision of and work for a world without chemical weapons.

Francis has as Holy Roman Pontiff created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from chemical weapons has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Francis's initiative, the Vatican is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Francis captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 112 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Francis is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Francis's appeal that "War never again! Never again war!"

Oslo, 8 September 2013

With utmost firmness I condemn the use of chemical weapons.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) September 3, 2013