Pope calls for peace, hope in world of conflict
VATICAN CITY — On Christianity’s most joyful day, Pope Francis called for peace in a world marked by war and conflict, “beginning with the beloved and long-suffering land of Syria” and extending to Israel, where 15 Palestinians were killed on the Israeli-Gaza border two days before Easter Sunday.
Francis reflected on the power of Christianity’s core belief — that Jesus rose from the dead following crucifixion — in his formal “Urbi et Orbi” Easter message delivered from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to a packed square of some 80,000 faithful below.
The pontiff said the message of the resurrection offers hope in a world “marked by so many acts of injustice and violence,” including parts of Africa affected by “hunger, endemic conflicts and terrorism.”
“It bears fruits of hope and dignity where there are deprivation and exclusion, hunger and unemployment; where there are migrants and refugees, so often rejected by today’s culture of waste, and victims of the drug trade, human trafficking and contemporary forms of slavery,” the pope said.
Francis called for a “swift end” to the seven years of carnage in Syria, demanding that aid be delivered to the war-torn country’s needy and calling for “fitting conditions for the returned and the displaced.”
The pope also urged reconciliation in Israel, a place ‘‘experiencing in these days the wounds of ongoing conflict that do not spare the defenseless.” His remarks followed the Friday deaths of Palestinian protesters who charged toward Gaza’s border with Israel, the area’s deadliest violence in four years.