Pope: Ensure a better future for
the people of Iraq, Syria
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| Refugee camp "Hope" on the Syrian Turkish border.- AFP |
Pope Francis meets with Catholic Charitable Organizations
who are holding the sixth meeting for coordinating the Church’s response to the
crisis in Iraq, Syria and neighbouring countries. He appeals to the
international community for peace and for victims.
By Lydia O'Kane
The Pope’s address to the Catholic Charitable Organizations
on Friday offered encouragement and appreciation for the work that they do
in Syria, Iraq and neighbouring countries, but it was also a
speech in which the Pontiff made a forceful appeal to the international
community asking them “not to neglect the many needs of the victims of
this crisis, and above all to set aside special interests in order to be at the
service of peace, and to bring an end to war.”
Appeal for the region
We cannot close our eyes, he said, to the reasons that have
forced millions of people to leave, painfully, their home countries. At
the same time, I encourage all parties involved, and the international
community, to renew their commitment to ensuring the safe return of
displaced persons to their homes.”
The Pope added, “ensuring their protection and their future
is a demand imposed by civilized behaviour. It will be through drying the
tears of children who have seen nothing but ruins, death and destruction that
the world will recover its dignity.”
Speaking to the representatives gathered in the Vatican’s
Consistory Hall, Pope Francis told them that the work they were doing with
regard to studying the humanitarian aid provided by ecclesial groups, was important
to “contributing to a better understanding of the needs of these populations
and to coordinate aid to them.”
The Pope said that for “too many years the conflicts of
bloodshed in that region, and the situation of peoples in Syria, Iraq and
neighbouring countries, have continued to cause great concern.”
The Christian Community
During the audience Pope Francis reiterated the fact that
there was a real risk that “the Christian presence may disappear in the very
land from which the light of the Gospel first emanated.” He went on to
say that, “in cooperation with the Sister Churches, the Holy See is working to
diligently ensure a future for these Christian communitie
He also said, the whole Church stood with these brothers and
sisters in faith giving them the courage “not to give in to the darkness of
violence and to keep alive the light of hope.”
Noting the many initiatives the Catholic Charitable
Organizations promote, the Pope praised in particular “the great
project of supporting the return of Christian communities to the Nineveh Plain
in Iraq, in a special way through the Open Hospitals project.”
Pope Francis especially encouraged those present “to
continue to provide for the education of children, employment for young people,
closeness to the elderly and those who are psychologically wounded; without
forgetting the wounds of the heart, which the Church is called to heal”.
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