Pope Francis: Fresh violence in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta is ‘inhumane’

February 25, 2018 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Vatican City, Feb 25, 2018 / 04:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After a week of heavy bombardment near Damascus left hundreds of civilians dead, Pope Francis has made an appeal for global leaders to rally in ending the siege, allowing civilians to evacuate and humanitarian aid to get in.

“In these days my thought is often turned to the beloved and martyred Syria, where the war has exploded again, especially in Eastern Ghouta,” the Pope said Feb. 25, noting that this month marks one of the most violent since the Syrian conflict erupted seven years ago.

Thousands of innocent lives have been claimed by the ongoing, bloody war, with several hundred more being added just this past week, many of whom are women, children and elderly, he said.

“Hospitals have been hit, people can't get enough to eat…all of this is inhumane,” Francis said, stressing that “evil cannot be fought with another evil.”

The Pope then issued “a heartfelt appeal” for global leaders to work to stop the violence, to allow humanitarian aid such as food and medicine into the area, and to ensure that the sick and wounded would be evacuated.

Francis' appeal comes a week after Russian-backed Syrian forces launched a series of deadly airstrikes and artillery fire on besieged Easter Ghouta enclave, which sits just northeast of Damascus.

Home to some 400,000 people, Eastern Ghouta is the last rebel-held area east of Damascus and has been a target of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces since 2013 in a bid to drive the rebels out.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fresh eruption of conflict in the area, which began Feb. 18, has so far left more than 500 civilians dead, of whom 121 are children. Aid groups also report that several hospitals in the area are now out of commission.

After three days of deliberation to come up with a ceasefire deal, the U.N. Security Counsel yesterday voted unanimously in favor of a resolution calling for a 30-day calm to allow residents of the suburb to evacuate, and food and medicine to enter.

However, reports indicate that just hours after the deal was accepted, the Syrian government launched a new  ground and air offensive in the area.

Pope Francis' appeal, which he made during his Angelus address for the Second Sunday of Lent, asked pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square to join him in praying that his plea would be answered “without delay.” He then led pilgrims in a moment of silence before reciting a Hail Mary.

In his address, he focused on the transfiguration of Jesus in the day's Gospel reading from Mark, saying the announcement that he would be rejected, put to death and would then rise on the third day “put Peter and the group of the disciples into crisis,” since they had been expecting a powerful Messiah who would rule the nations.

However, instead, Jesus presents himself “as a humble and meek servant of God and of men,” who was to give his life in sacrifice through persecution, suffering and a violent death.

The transfiguration, Francis said, ultimately helps the disciples to face the Passion of Christ in a positive way, “without being overwhelmed” by it. It also helps both the disciples, and us, to understand that while Jesus' Passion is “a mystery of suffering,” it's above all “a gift of infinite love on the part of Jesus.”

“The event of Jesus who transfigures himself on the mountain also helps us to better understand his resurrection,” the Pope said, explaining that if the transfiguration and God's declaration that “this is my beloved Son” had not happened before Jesus' Passion, neither this nor Jesus' rising in the Paschal mystery would be easily understood.

In order to understand these events, he said, “it's necessary to know in advance that he who suffers and who is glorified is not only a man, but the Son of God, who with his love faithful to death has saved us.”

Francis said that it's important, especially during Lent, to go up the mountain with Jesus and be with him and listen to his voice, allowing oneself to be transformed by the Holy Spirit.

“It's the experience of contemplation and prayer, of living not in avoidance of daily struggles, but of enjoying familiarity with God, in order to take up with renewed vigor the tiring path of the cross, which leads us to the resurrection.”

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

Related Articles

No Picture
News Briefs

In book foreword, Pope Francis calls corruption a ‘cancer’

June 15, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Jun 15, 2017 / 11:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis, in a foreword to a work by Cardinal Peter Turkson, has said corruption infects the world like a cancer, and the Church must combat it by working together with society, infusing it with mercy.

“We must all work together, Christians, non-Christians, people of all faiths and non-believers, to combat this form of blasphemy, this cancer that weighs our lives,” the Pope wrote.

“It is urgent to take notice of it, and this is why we need education and a merciful culture, we need cooperation on the part of everyone according to their own possibilities, their talents, their creativity.”

Hi words on corruption were written in a foreword for Corrosion, a book-length interview of Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, published June 15.

The interview was conducted by Vittorio V. Alberti, a member of the Cardinal Turkson’s dicastery.

The book was presented at the Vatican during an “International Debate on Corruption.” Italian daily Corriere della Sera published the Pope’s foreword June 14, just ahead of the book’s release.

Corruption, Francis wrote, in its Italian etymological root, means “a tear, break, decomposition, and disintegration.”

The life of a human being can be understood in the context of his many relationships: with God, with his neighbor, with creation, the Pope said.

“This threefold relationship – in which man’s self-reflection also falls – gives context and sense to his actions and, in general, to his life,” but these are destroyed by corruption.

When we respect these relationships we are honest, responsible, and work for the common good. But when corruption enters in, they become torn. “Thus, corruption expresses the general form of disordered life of the decayed man,” he said.

And this has an effect on all of society.

What, for example, he asked, is at the root of exploitation, degradation, human trafficking, trafficking of weapons and drugs, social injustice, lack of service for people? What is the origin of slavery, unemployment, carelessness for cities, common goods, and nature?

Corruption “is a profound cultural question that needs to be addressed.”

But in order to address it, we must understand the different forms of corruption, besides merely the political, like those that infect even the average person.

For example, Francis said, our corruption can be a “spiritual worldliness, tepidness, hypocrisy, triumphalism, to make prevail only the spirit of the world in our lives, a sense of indifference.”

In the book, Cardinal Turkson explains the ramifications of these different forms of corruption, he continued, focusing in particular on the origins of corruption: which, “in fact, sprouts in the heart of man and can sprout in the heart of all men.”

“We are, in fact, all very exposed to the temptation of corruption: even when we think it has been defeated, it can be present again,” he said.

Cardinal Turkson explores the different types of corruption, including spiritual, cultural, political, and criminal, as well as the various ways in which they come about and insinuate themselves into our lives. Putting these together, he shows what the Church must do, the Pope said.

“The Church must listen, raise herself and bend herself on the sorrows and hopes of people according to mercy, and must do so without fear of purifying herself, assiduously seeking a way to improve.”

“Henri de Lubac wrote that the greatest danger for the Church is spiritual worldliness – therefore corruption – which is more disastrous than the infamous leprosy.”

“And it is with this awareness that we, men and women of the Church, can accompany ourselves and the suffering humanity, especially those most oppressed by the criminal consequences and degradation created by corruption.”

To fight the many ways we may allow corruption into our lives, we must join together, Francis said. On our own we are like individual pieces of snow, both Christians and non-Christians. But united, we can become like an avalanche, he explained: “a strong and constructive movement.”

“Here is the new humanism, this renaissance, this re-creation against corruption that we can accomplish with prophetic audacity.”

Writing from inside the Vatican, Francis reflected on the ways beauty can transcend sin and corruption.

“This beauty is not a cosmetic accessory, but something that puts the human person in the center so that it can lift the head against all injustices,” he said.

“This beauty should marry with justice. Thus we must speak about corruption, denounce evils, understand it, and show the will to affirm mercy for grief, curiosity and creativity for resigned fatigue, beauty for nothing.”

[…]

1 Trackback / Pingback

  1. Pope Francis: Fresh violence in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta is ‘inhumane’ -

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*