Pope a real contender for the Nobel Peace Prize, historian says

The pope is a serious candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, says Norwegian historian Stenersen. The Nobel Committee will announce the 2026 laureate on Friday at 11 a.m.

“At a time when conflicts in the Middle East are escalating and fear and tension are growing around the world, the new American pope is sending a particularly clear signal of peace,” the historian said, as reported by the website of the Polsat News TV channel.

Another strong contender, in his view, is Caritas. This international Catholic network provides food, water, medical aid and shelter during wars and natural disasters in more than 200 countries. Stenersen does not rule out that the committee could split the prize between the pope and Caritas. The Czech charity Charita, a full member since 1995, is also part of the Caritas Internationalis network.

Still, the historian considers an even more likely contender to be the network of Sudanese organizations Sudan Emergency Response Rooms, which helps people displaced by the war.

Whether the historian’s forecast will come true, as in 2014 and 2017 (when the prize went to human rights activist Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN), will become clear very soon.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz