Slain minister's brother to speak at Vatican gathering

ROME: Pakistani religious freedom advocate Paul Bhatti, the brother of slain federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti, will speak in front of Pope Francis and some 120,000 members of new Catholic religious movements on Saturday, the Vatican said.

The international gathering is part of the Catholic Church's drive to inspire a "new evangelisation" forged by the pope's predecessor Benedict XVI and it is timed to coincide with Pentecost, the feast of the Holy Spirit.

"A lot of young people from these ecclesiastical realities have not only recovered a faith lost or turned sterile but have accomplished a true conversion," Renato Fisichella, the Vatican's point man for evangelisation, said on Wednesday.

Dynamic religious movements like Communion and Liberation, the Neo-Catechumenal Way and Legionaries of Christ, which have drawn thousands of followers, will be represented at the meeting.

Paul Bhatti, a Catholic like his brother, is minister of national harmony and minority affairs and head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance.