Pope: real second class citizens
are those who discard others
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| Pope meeting the Roma and Sinti people in the Vatican on 9 May, 2019 (Vatican Media) |
Pope Francis on Thursday presided over a prayer meeting with
some 500 minority Roma and Sinti people and expressed his pain at the
discrimination and racial hatred they face.
By Robin Gomes
Pope Francis on Thursday expressed his closeness with the
minority Roma and Sinti people of Rome saying he suffers and is greatly pained
when he hears about insults, racial hatred and violence against
them. “This is not civilization… Love is civilization,”
the Pope told some 500 of them during a prayer meeting in the Vatican.
The initiative organized by the Migrantes Foundation of the
Italian bishops’ conference (CEI) was attended by pastoral workers, CEI
president Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti and others. The prayer meeting came
in the wake of violent protests by residents of a Rome periphery against the
allotment of an apartment in a government housing complex to a nomad family.
Stereotyping
After hearing moving testimonies of a Roma priest and a
mother of 4, the Pope regretted the “bitter pain of segregation” that they feel
on their skin and that pushes them aside. “Society lives on fairy tales,”
stereotyping people as beggars and sinners, the Pope said, asking, “Are you not
a sinner?” He said that all of us are sinners, we all make mistakes in
life but I cannot wash my hands of them, looking out for the real or fake sins
of others. The Holy Father said that one needs to first look at one’s own
sins, and if he or she sees someone making a “wrong turn”, to help the person
out.
Adjectives create rift between mind and heart
“One thing that makes me angry,” the Pope said, “is that we
are used to talking about people with adjectives.” Stereotyping persons
with adjectives such as ugly, bad and evil are something “that creates
distances between the mind and the heart.”
This, he said, is not a political, social, cultural or
language problem, but one of “distance between the mind and heart”.
The Holy Father admitted that “second-class citizens” do
exist “but the real second-class citizens are those who discard people… because
they cannot embrace”. With adjectives and slander, he said,
these people throw out and discard others with a broom in hand.
Real delinquents?
“Instead, the real road is that of brotherhood.”
He warned against the danger and weakness of letting resentment or grudge grow
because rancour sickens the heart, the head and everything and leads to
revenge.
Without mentioning names, the Pope alluded to criminal
organizations in Italy who he said are “masters of revenge” – “a group of
people who are able to take revenge and live in “‘omerta” [code of
silence]. “This is a group of delinquent people; not people who want to
work.”
The Pope concluded urging all not to create distances in the
mind and heart with adjectives.
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