Pope asks Christians to work on peace

Geneva trip symbolizes outreach to other faiths

GENEVA — Pope Francis journeyed Thursday to the well-heeled city of Geneva to encourage all Christians, despite their differences, to join in efforts to foster justice and fight poverty while the rich grow “ever more wealthy.”

The pontiff ’s day-long “ecumenical pilgrimage” to the lakeside Swiss city that embraced the Protestant Reformation was aimed at stressing what can unite, rather than divide, Christians.

During his visit, Francis met with a group of Korean Protestants, four from the North and four from the South. Their handshakes and smiles built on the pontiff ’s oft-voiced hopes for peace and unity on the Korean Peninsula, especially with the recent summit of U.S. and North Korean leaders.

Francis pitched for greater togetherness at an ecumenical prayer service hosted by the World Council of Churches, which is marking its 70th anniversary this year. The WCC is a fellowship of 350 churches that aims to show the unity of the Christian faith. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member.

The Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, a Lutheran minister from Norway who is the WCC’S general secretary, told reporters he hoped the pope’s greeting will be a “gesture that will inspire” the Koreans.

Korean Protestants regularly attend the Council’s meetings, but the show of unity comes amid a thaw in relations between the two Koreas and between the United States and North Korea.

A day earlier, Chairman Myong Chol Kang of the Korean Christian Federation, which has the stamp of approval from Kim Jong Un’s regime, told WCC’S central committee: “Peace has begun to emerge on the Korean peninsula, which has been struggling with nuclear confrontation and war.”

He said the world welcomed “the dramatic events that could not even be imagined until just a few months ago on the Korean peninsula and the surprise of the new era of peace,” before quoting from Matthew: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Addressing an ecumenical gathering, Francis said Christians were called to “respond to the cry of all those, in every part of the world, who suffer unjustly from the baleful spread of an exclusion that, by generating poverty, foments conflicts.”