Day of Hope

This week in history, September 20-26:

• The Mongolian Peoples’ Federation is inaugurated (September 21, 2004)
• The Day of Hope Wall Street Rally is held (September 22, 1973)
• An interfaith day of prayer and healing is held (September 22, 2001)
• True Father launches Substantial Abel UN (September 23, 2007)
• The Transition of the Three Ages Realm of Oneness Unification Blessing Ceremony is held (September 24, 2000)
• Archbiship Milingo is excommunicated by the Vatican (September 26, 2006)

September 21, 2004

Inauguration of Mongolian Peoples’ Federation

True Father speaks at the International Peace Conference for Mongolian Leaders from Around the World.

True Father established numerous Federations for World Peace following the end of the Cold War and into the new millennium. From September 21 to 24, 2004, the first International Peace Conference for Mongolian Leaders from Around the World took place in Seoul. This conference led to the creation of the Mongolian Peoples’ Federation for World Peace (MPFWP). True Father defined Mongolian peoples as those born with the Mongolian birthmark, a bluish mark usually seen on the backside. He asserted that nearly three-quarters of the world’s population is linked to Mongolian roots and that the Mongolian birthmark appears not only in persons of the yellow race but also among many black and white people. He maintained that values preserved among Mongolian peoples, such as faith in absolute values, an understanding of human spirituality, belief in the existence of the spirit world, an emphasis on family tradition and the importance of lineage would play a significant role in bringing about the realization of a world of peace. The initial conference brought together 300 participants from Mongolia, Korea, Japan, China and 34 other nations. The Mongolian Federation convened subsequent meetings under the auspices of the Universal Peace Federation.

September 22, 1973

Day of Hope Wall Street Rally

Having completed his first Day of Hope speaking tour of eight U.S. cities in 1972, True Father mobilized U.S. Unificationists for a more ambitious 21-city Day of Hope tour to begin in New York City’s Carnegie Hall on October 3, 1973. By the end of August, more than four hundred Unificationists gathered to publicize the Day of Hope talks under the theme “Christianity in Crisis: New Hope.” On September 22, a major rally was staged on the steps of Federal Hall on Wall Street. The New York Daily News carried a large photo and article on the rally. Time, Newsweek and Christianity Today all carried stories on the campaign, and Associated Press religion writer George W. Cornell’s generally positive feature story appeared in 79 newspapers throughout the United States.

September 22, 2001

Interfaith Day of Prayer and Healing

More than 1,000 clergy from all faiths attended an Interfaith Prayer Breakfast and Day of Prayer and Healing to offer prayers for the victims of the 9/11 tragedy in New York and Washington, D.C.

True Father had called for a 12,000-couple World Clergy Blessing to take place in New York’s Madison Square Garden on September 22, 2001. It was intended to build upon the Interfaith Marriage Blessing of 60 clergy couples the previous May in which Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo was blessed with Korean Unificationist Maria Sung. The tragic events of 9/11 intervened and the clergy Blessing was postponed. In lieu of the Blessing, an Interfaith Prayer Breakfast brought together more than 1,000 clergy and guests in the Grand Ballroom of the Manhattan Center and an outdoor Day of Prayer and Healing rally took place at the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building in Harlem. The rally attracted some 3,000 participants as well as coverage on CNN, CBS and other media outlets.  Forty American Clergy Leadership Conference (ACLC) ministers had counseled police and firefighters at Ground Zero the night before the prayer breakfast and rally and continued to do so in the days that followed.

September 23, 2007

True Father Launches the “Substantial” Abel UN

True Father launched the “Substantial” Abel UN at the Manhattan Center.

In 2000, True Father’s proposal to renew the United Nations through incorporating an interreligious peace council launched the UN providence. The following year, True Father began the Ambassador for Peace program. In 2003, he established the Interreligious and International Peace Council (IIPC), and in 2005, on the occasion of the UN’s 60^th anniversary, he founded the Universal Peace Federation (UPF). Their core objective was “to work cooperatively with the United Nations and to serve and support that institution as it seeks to fulfill its own global mission.” Two years later, on September 23, 2007, True Father launched what he termed the “Substantial” Abel UN.

Conducted at the Manhattan Center in New York City, the inauguration brought together representatives from 192 nations seated at UN-style conference tables. Flags and regalia added to the atmosphere. True Father’s keynote address, augmented by extemporaneous comments, lasted three hours. In it, he referred to UPF as “an Abel-type counterpart to the UN” and to the new initiative as the “Peace UN.” He expressed hope that it would “lead the way for millions of Ambassadors for Peace throughout the world … to fulfill the heavenly will of creating ‘One Family under God.’” Finishing at 11:00 p.m., True Father penned an approximately thirty-foot calligraphic message that read, in Chinese characters, “May the Sovereignty of the God of True Love, the Sacred Reign of Peace, Last Forever.” He then struck a giant gong, sealing the evening’s proceedings

September 24, 2000

The Transition of the Three Ages Realm of Oneness Unification Blessing Ceremony

The Transition of the Three Ages Realm of Oneness Unification Blessing Ceremony was held at the Cheongpyeong Heaven and Earth Training Center on September 24, 2000. The ceremony was conducted on the last day of the blessed wives’ workshop for the third registration. On this day True Father asked twenty-four Unificationist-born young adults—twelve men and twelve women—to line up and placed a granddaughter in front of one line and a grandson in front of the other and then gave his benediction. He said, “The spiritual and physical worlds, which divided as a result of the Fall, have become one through the victorious realm of the True Parents of Heaven and Earth. Children in the spiritual world and on earth should inherit this and achieve the Registration Blessing with the parents.” (Materials provided by the FFWPU History Compilation Committee)

September 26, 2006

Archbishop Milingo Excommunicated by the Vatican

Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo sparked a controversy which reached to the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church when he married Maria Sung in an Interfaith Clergy Blessing conducted by True Parents on May 26, 2001. Upon an appeal by Pope John Paul II, he renounced the union a few months later and receded from public view for five years before resurfacing dramatically in 2006 to announce that he had rejoined his wife and was launching an independent charismatic ministry, Married Priests Now. Archbishop Milingo was given a deadline to submit a letter of repentance, which he refused to do. On September 24, 2006, he took the irrevocable step of installing four married men as bishops. Two days later, a Vatican communiqué announced that for this “public act” Archbishop Milingo had incurred automatic excommunication. A Vatican summit, convened by Pope Benedict XVI on November 16, 2006, reaffirmed the church’s position on clerical celibacy.