On 29 July 2026 Pope Leo XIV led Canticle of Peace (Cantico di Pace), a prayer and fraternity gathering at Borgo Laudato si’ in the Pontifical Gardens of Castel Gandolfo. The event formed part of commemorations of the 800th anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi.
Organisation and participants
Organisers were the Laudato si’ Higher Education Centre and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation. A Holy See announcement of 27 July 2026 described an international choir of 164 children and young people from crisis-affected areas. Official accounts list participants from the Holy Land, Uganda, Haiti and Italy (Rione Sanità and Camerino). A ten-day period of rehearsals and cultural exchange preceded the evening. Vatican News reported on the gathering and its programme.
Readings and music included texts linked to St Francis (among them the Canticle of the Creatures), biblical passages, appeals for peace associated with St Paul VI and St John Paul II, material from Pope Francis’s “Fratelli tutti,” and a setting of Gianni Rodari’s “The Moon of Kyiv.” The programme closed with the Lord’s Prayer, the sign of peace, the Apostolic Blessing and a performance of Amazing Grace by Bocelli and the choir.
Setting
Castel Gandolfo overlooks Lake Albano in the Alban Hills and has long served as a papal residence. Borgo Laudato si’, within the Pontifical Gardens, is associated by the Holy See with the encyclical Laudato si’ and with formation in integral ecology. The gathering was held beneath the holm oak known as “Methuselah,” at the Piazzale del Padiglione del Riposo according to the published papal greeting.
Greeting after the gathering
Photographs show Julio Herrera Velutini and Melanie Herrera Velutini greeting Pope Leo XIV after the gathering. Banvelca Foundation supported the initiative. Read the report on the post-event greeting.