The city of Rome will host the IV Fratelli Tutti Synodal Meeting: North-South Socio-Environmental Dialogue from September 10 to 12, a space for dialogue that seeks to turn concern over the socio-environmental crisis into concrete proposals for social justice, just transition, and shared responsibility. The event will take place at the La Salle Generalate and will bring together representatives of the Church, the world of work, international organizations, businesses, universities, and social movements.
The meeting is the result of cooperation between the Pontifical Commission for Latin America of the Holy See (PCAL) and the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM), in collaboration with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI). The initiative is part of the horizon of the proposal to build bridges of reconciliation, integration, and fraternity for peace, and forms part of the PCAL’s Building Bridges initiative.
The Fratelli Tutti Synodal Meetings were born in Latin America and the Caribbean as an ecclesial space open to social dialogue, inspired by Pope Francis’s call to promote a true culture of encounter. Promoted by CELAM since 2020 and accompanied by the PCAL since 2021, these meetings have followed a progressive path. The first diagnosis, according to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, was prepared in Bogotá in 2022 with the participation of university researchers, bishops, and representatives of territorial networks, and led to identifying the world of organized labor as one of the privileged spaces for seeking concrete responses to major social and environmental challenges. Since then, the process has incorporated union leaders, business representatives, international organizations, popular movements, organized communities, development banks, global companies, universities, and ecclesial organizations.
One of the main consensuses reached during the process is that social justice and environmental justice are inseparable. The climate crisis, the deterioration of ecosystems, and transformations in production models do not affect all people in the same way. Their consequences fall with particular intensity on workers, vulnerable communities, and territories that depend directly on natural resources. At the same time, those in the world of organized labor can become decisive actors in a just transition, capable of combining environmental protection, creation of dignified employment, social inclusion, and equitable distribution of opportunities and responsibilities. Informality, precarious work, automation, and new forms of productive organization are transforming the labor market and forcing a rethink of vocational training, protection systems, labor relations, and the institutions of work themselves.
The diagnosis developed throughout the meetings has also identified other key points. Among them is the forced migration of unemployed workers, linked to economic inequalities, conflicts, and environmental transformations. Migrations highlight both the contribution of workers to host societies and the need to restore trust in institutions capable of representing, protecting, and organizing those who work. Another decisive challenge is technological acceleration. Artificial intelligence, automation, and new technologies are changing the way we produce, work, communicate, and participate in social life. These transformations can generate enormous opportunities for scientific and economic progress, but they also raise questions about employment, technological sovereignty, wealth distribution, and equitable access to new opportunities. The energy transition poses similar challenges, as it requires ensuring that the costs and benefits of that process are distributed fairly. All of this is taking place in an international context marked by geopolitical tensions, polarization, and the weakening of multilateralism.
Faced with this scenario, the Fratelli Tutti Synodal Meetings propose a fundamental conviction: no actor can face alone problems that are increasingly interdependent. The response requires unions and businesses, governments and international organizations, universities and social movements, local communities and religious institutions. But cooperation cannot be limited to a sum of interests. The process places at its center concepts such as human dignity, social friendship, subsidiarity, community discernment, and shared responsibility. The experience developed in previous meetings has shown that dialogue is possible even among actors with different interests and perspectives when there is a common will to seek solutions and to place the person, work, social justice, and care for our common home at the center.
Context and relevance
The IV Rome Meeting aims to take an additional step. After several years of listening, analysis, and dialogue, the goal now is to move toward concrete proposals capable of launching an agenda of shared responsibility for reflection and action. The program is structured in four main blocks. The first, dedicated to the socio-environmental ecological crisis, will address the relationship between social dialogue, synodality, just transition, and social justice. Participants will include Cardinal Jaime Spengler, Bishop Daniel Flores, Liz Shuler of the AFL-CIO, and Fred Humphries of Microsoft. The second block will focus on a multisectoral agenda of shared responsibility, with the participation of representatives from the labor world and international organizations linked to work and climate change. The dialogue will seek to identify how to build bridges and generate spaces for reflection and joint action. In the afternoon, there will be a process of community social discernment, through working groups and a plenary aimed at strengthening a culture of negotiation and cooperation.
The session on Friday, September 11, will focus on new things and the transformations that are already profoundly changing societies. One of the central moments will be the dialogue on artificial intelligence, with the participation of specialists linked to science, technology, ethics, and development. The program will also address the possibility of establishing strategic alliances and framework agreements among diverse actors. Representatives of workers in the popular economy, union organizations, communities linked to mining, and grassroots organizations will analyze new forms of cooperation. The fourth block will be dedicated to the reconstruction of the city, understood not only as physical infrastructure but as the reconstruction of the social fabric. Representatives of development banks, universities, and international organizations will analyze the role of finance, technology, and research and development in the transformation of societies. The meeting will culminate with a new space for community social discernment and work aimed at strengthening a movement of reflection and action. The closing will include the participation of Cardinal Leonardo Steiner, president of CEAMA, and Jill Rauh of the Justice and Peace Secretariat of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB.
Original source: www.vaticannews.va (published on September 10, 2026)
