Pope`s Easter message: Pray for Ukrainian, Russian people, refugees
RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – Pope Francis, the world catholic leader, in his Easter message highlighted hope and called for praying for both the Ukrainian and Russian people and praised nations which welcome refugees.
His Pope on Sunday asked Israelis and Palestinians wracked by the latest surge in deadly violence to forge a “climate of trust.”
Francis, along with dozens of prelates and tens of thousands of faithful, celebrated Easter Mass in a flower-adorned St. Peter’s Square, affirming the Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead days after his crucifixion.
The 86-year-old pontiff topped the celebration with a traditional speech about troubled places in the world. Encouraging “trust among individuals, peoples and nations,” Francis said Easter’s joy “illumines the darkness and gloom in which, all too often, our world finds itself enveloped.”
The pope’s Easter message is known by its Latin name, ”Urbi et Orbi,” which means “to the city and the world.”
He urged the international community to work to end the war in Ukraine and “all conflict and bloodshed in the world, beginning with Syria, which still awaits peace.”
Francis also prayed for those who lost loved ones in an earthquake that struck Syria and Turkey two months ago, claiming tens of thousands of lives.
With a renewal in deadly violence affecting both Israelis and Palestinians in recent days, Francis called for a “resumption of dialogue, in a climate of trust and reciprocal respect, between Israelis and Palestinians, so that peace may reign in the Holy City and in the entire region,″ a reference to Jerusalem.
But Francis also noted progress on some fronts.
“Let us rejoice at the concrete signs of hope that reach us from so many countries, beginning with those that offers assistance and welcome to all fleeing war and poverty,” he said, without naming any particular nations.
How to care for asylum-seekers, migrants and refugees, and whether to allow them entrance, is a raging political and social debate in much of Europe, as well in the United States and elsewhere.
Francis also prayed that national leaders “ensure that no man or woman may encounter discrimination” and that there would be “full respect for human rights and democracy.”
With migrants risking their lives in smugglers’ unseaworthy boats in hopes of reaching Europe, the pope lamented that Tunisia’s people, particularly the young, struggle with social and economic hardship.
Speaking about Haiti, he appealed to “political actors and the international community to seek a definitive solution to the many problems that afflict that sorely tried people.”