Benedict XVI commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the 1986 Interreligious Meeting of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, initiated by John Paul II. The hope for peace that followed the fall of Communist regimes has been overshadowed by terrorism and continuing conflict in the new millennium. Against the tendency to blame religion for these tensions, the Pope insists that religion must be a herald of peace rather than a source of violence. Gathering religious leaders for prayer witnesses that all people are created in God’s image and therefore owe one another brotherly love.