Pope Francis raises plight of refugees during Easter mass
Pope Francis tempered his Easter Sunday message of Christian hope with a denunciation of “blind” terrorism, recalling victims of attacks in Europe, Africa and elsewhere, and expressing dismay at Europe’s attitude to the plight of refugees.
Tens of thousands of people patiently endured long lines due to security checks to enter St Peter’s Square in Vatican City. Under a brilliant sun, they listened to Francis deliver the traditional noon Easter speech from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica.
Francis toured the square, adorned with tulips and other spring flowers, in his open-topped “popemobile” after celebrating mass on the basilica steps. He leaned over barriers to shake hands as the vehicle ventured past the Vatican’s confines, his bodyguards jogging alongside.
For years, Islamist extremists have used social media to cite the Vatican and Rome as potential targets due to the headquarters of the Roman Catholic church and several basilicas. Despite the threats, Francis has remained in close physical contact with ordinary people.
Francis said, for the faithful, Jesus rose after death by crucifixion to “triumph over evil and sin”. He expressed hope that faith would “draw us closer to the victims of terrorism, that blind and brutal form of violence.”
Francis does his rounds in the popemobile. Photograph: Ettore Ferrari/EPA
In his speech, Francis cited recent attacks in Belgium, Turkey, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Iraq, and called the message of Easter “a message of life for all humanity”.
Easter “invites us not to forget those men and women seeking a better future, an ever more numerous throng of migrants and refugees — including many children — fleeing from war, hunger, poverty and social injustice,” he said.
Francis lamented that “all too often, these brothers and sisters of ours meet along the way with death or, in any event, rejection by those who could offer them welcome and assistance”.
Some European countries have erected fences to keep out those who continue to arrive on Greek and Italian shores after risky sea voyages on smugglers’ boats. Another strategy has been for some European countries to express a preference for accepting Christian refugees over Muslims — effectively ruling out the majority of Syrian refugees.
Most recently, countries along Europe’s main migrant route north of Greece to central Europe have closed their borders to refugees, stranding thousands of families at border points.
Francis also decried the destruction and “contempt for humanitarian law” in Syria, millions of whose people have fled to Europe or to refugee camps closer to their homeland.
At the end of the mass, he chatted briefly with the former king and queen of Belgium, Albert II and Paola, who attended the ceremony.