Pope Francis to Merkel, G20 leaders: put people at
centre
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives to greet heads of state attending the G20 meeting in Hamburg, northern Germany, on July 7.-AFP |
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a Message to the heads of the Group of 20 nations, who
are gathered in Hamburg, Germany from July 7-8.
Addressed directly to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the
Message details four principles of action, which the Holy Father offers as
guides for the building of fraternal, just and peaceful societies: time
is greater than space; unity prevails over conflict; realities are more
important than ideas; and the whole is greater than the part.
Pope Francis expresses the hope that those four principles –
drawn from his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii gaudium –
might also serve as an aid to reflection for the Hamburg meeting and for the
assessment of its outcome.
The Holy Father’s reflections touch on several pressing
issues, including the ongoing migration crisis.
“In the minds and hearts of government leaders, and at every
phase of the enactment of political measures, there is a need to give absolute
priority to the poor, refugees, the suffering, evacuees and the excluded,
without distinction of nation, race, religion or culture, and to reject armed
conflicts,” Pope Francis writes.
The Holy Father also addresses the situation in South Sudan,
the Lake Chad basin, the Horn of Africa and Yemen, where thirty million people
are lacking the food and water needed to survive, writing, “A commitment to
meet these situations with urgency and to provide immediate support to those
peoples will be a sign of the seriousness and sincerity of the mid-term
commitment to reforming the world economy and a guarantee of its sound
development.”
Writing on the ever-present threat and reality of conflict
in the world, the Holy Father recalls the upcoming hundredth anniversary of
Pope Benedict XV’s Letter to the Leaders of the Warring Peoples,
asking that the world put an end to all these “useless slaughters.
[Emphasis in original]”
“War,” Pope Francis writes, “is never a solution.”
Pope Francis goes on to write of the urgent need to overcome
ideological divides.
“The fateful ideologies of the first half of the twentieth
century have been replaced by new ideologies of absolute market autonomy and
financial speculation,” he writes.
Calling for a recovery of, “a sound and prudent pragmatism,
guided by the primacy of the human being and the attempt to integrate and
coordinate diverse and at times opposed realities, on the basis of respect for
each and every citizen,” which was the hallmark of, “the significant political
and economic achievements of the past century,” the Holy Father prays that the
Hamburg Summit may be illumined by the example of those European and world
leaders who consistently gave pride of place to dialogue and the quest of
common solutions, especially Schuman, De Gasperi, Adenauer, and Monnet.
“Problems, Pope Francis goes on to write, “need to be
resolved concretely and with due attention to their specificity, but such
solutions, to be lasting, cannot neglect a broader vision. They must
likewise consider eventual repercussions on all countries and their citizens,
while respecting the views and opinions of the latter.”
He then repeats the warning that Benedict XVI addressed to
the G20 London Summit in 2009, to the effect that the states and individuals
whose voices are weakest on the world political scene, are precisely the ones
who suffer most from the harmful effects of economic crises for which they bear
little or no responsibility, and that this great majority, which in
economic terms counts for only 10% of the whole, is the portion of humanity
that has the greatest potential to contribute to the progress of
everyone.
“Consequently,” he writes, “there is need to make constant
reference to the United Nations, its programmes and associated agencies, and
regional organizations, to respect and honour international treaties, and to
continue promoting a multilateral approach, so that solutions can be truly
universal and lasting, for the benefit of all.”
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