section_path: Theological emphases and teachings/Theological disagreements/Document on Human Fraternity
section_name: Document on Human Fraternity
paragraph_text: Document on Human Fraternity
  
  The Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together is a joint statement signed by Francis and Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, on 4 February 2019. This statement is concerned with how different faiths can live peaceably in the same areas; it later inspired the International Day of Human Fraternity, as acknowledged by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Criticisms focused particularly on the passage about God's will with regard to the diversity of religions, claiming that the "pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings". Catholic theologian Chad Pecknold wrote that this sentence was "puzzling, and potentially problematic". Some Catholic observers tried to understand it as an allusion to the "permissive will" of God, allowing evil on earth. Pecknold wrote that the diversity of religions might also be "evidence of our natural desire to know God". Bishop Athanasius Schneider claims that Pope Francis clarified to him that he was referring to "the permissive will of God".