During the Holy Year 2025, the international community should strive “to overcome the logic of confrontation and embrace instead the logic of encounter”, Pope Francis told ambassadors and other diplomats accredited to the Holy See. Source: CNS.
In accordance with the biblical tradition of jubilees, the Holy Year is a time to rediscover how, in God, all people are brothers and sisters, “to pardon offences, to support the weak and the poor in our midst, to give rest and relief to the earth, to practice justice and to recover hope”, the Pope said on January 9.
Meeting with representatives of 184 nations, the European Union and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Pope Francis read only the first paragraph of his prepared text.
Explaining that he was “still suffering from a bit of a cold,” he asked an aide, Msgr. Filippo Ciampanelli, to read the rest of his text.
While the meeting is billed as an opportunity for the Pope to wish the diplomats a happy new year, Pope Francis used the occasion almost as a “Jubilee for Ambassadors” by reflecting in his text on the characteristics of “a diplomacy of hope, of which all of us are called to be heralds, so that the dense clouds of war may be swept away by renewed winds of peace.”
In the presence of Andrii Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, the Pope wrote in his text that “my wish for the year 2025 is that the entire international community will work above all to end the conflict that, for almost three years now, has caused so much bloodshed in war-torn Ukraine and has taken an enormous toll of lives, including those of many civilians.”
“Similarly,” the text said, “I renew my appeal for a ceasefire and the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, where there is a very serious and shameful humanitarian situation, and I ask that the Palestinian population receive all the aid it needs.”
Pope Francis also expressed concern about ongoing violence or political tensions in Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, Mozambique, Haiti, Bolivia, Colombia and Nicaragua.
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Pope to diplomats: Sweep away ‘clouds of war,’ let ‘winds of peace’ blow (CNS)
