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Pope Francis’ address to the meeting of aid agencies for the oriental churches (r.o.a.c.o.)
Clementine Hall – Thursday, 27 June 2024
Dear Friends,
In welcoming you at the end of your Plenary Session, I greet Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, the other Superiors of the Dicastery, the Officials, and the members of the Agencies taking part in your meeting.
As I look around in your presence, my thoughts turn with affection to the Eastern Churches, which must be cherished and esteemed for the unique spiritual and sapiential traditions that they preserve, and for all that they have to say to us about the Christian life, synodality, and the liturgy.
We think of the early Fathers, the Councils, and monasticism… inestimable treasures of the Church. Some of the Eastern Churches are in full communion with the Successor of the Apostle Peter. They enrich the Catholic communion with their impressive history and their distinctive features.
But this beauty is tarnished.
Many Eastern Churches bear a heavy cross and have become “martyr Churches”.
They bear the marks of Christ’s wounds.
Just as the Lord’s flesh was pierced by nails and a lance, so many Eastern communities suffer and bleed from the conflicts and violence they endure.
Let us think of some of the places where they live: the Holy Land and Ukraine; Syria, Lebanon, the entire Middle East; the Caucasus and Tigray.
It is precisely in these places, where there are large numbers of Eastern Catholics are found, that the brutality of war is felt most keenly.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot remain indifferent.
The Apostle Paul made clear the instruction he received from the other Apostles to be mindful of the most needy members of the Christian community (cf. Gal 2:10), and called for solidarity with them (cf. 2 Cor 8-9).
This is God’s own message, and you, the members of ROACO, are the hands that give it flesh, hands that help and lift up those who suffer.
That is why you have met in these days: not to make speeches and develop theories, not to engage in geopolitical analyses, but to discern the best ways to approach our brothers and sisters in the East and to alleviate their suffering.
I beg you, then, with heart in hand, to continue your support for the Eastern Catholic Churches, helping them to remain firmly rooted in the Gospel in these dramatic times.
With your help, may they be able to do what the civil authorities should do for the poorest and most vulnerable, but cannot do, do not know how to do, or do not want to do.
Encourage the clergy and religious to be ever attentive to the cries of the flock, to be exemplary in faith, to place the Gospel above all forms of disagreement or self-interest, and to be united in the service of the common good, since all those in the Church belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God (cf. 1 Cor 3:23).
Dear representatives of the various agencies, thank you for what you do!
You are evangelizers, sharers in the mission of the Church and channels of the love of Jesus. How many people have benefited from your generosity over the years!
You are sowers of hope, witnesses called to act, as the Gospel tells us, with kindness and discretion. Much of what you do attracts little attention in the eyes of the world, but it is pleasing to God.
Thank you for responding to destruction with reconstruction; to the deprivation of dignity with the restoration of hope; to the tears of children with a smile that speaks of love; to the evil logic of power with the Christian logic of service.
The seeds you plant in fields poisoned by hatred and war will surely flourish.
They will be a prophecy of a different world, a world that does not believe that might makes right, but in the non-violent power of peace.
I know that in recent days your attention has been focused on the dramatic situation in the Holy Land. It was there that it all began, that the Apostles received the mandate to go out into the whole world and preach the Gospel.
The faithful throughout the world are now called to show their closeness and to encourage Christians, there and throughout the Middle East, to resist the temptation to abandon their conflict-ridden lands.
It makes me think of a terrible situation: that these lands are being robbed of their Christians.
The suffering caused by war is all the more shocking and absurd when it occurs in the very places where the Gospel of peace has been proclaimed!
To those who fuel and profit from the spiral of conflict, I say once again Stop!
Stop, because violence will never bring peace.
There is an urgent need for a ceasefire, for meetings and dialogue, so that different peoples can live together. This is the only way to build a stable future.
War, a senseless and inconclusive undertaking, leaves no one a winner: everyone ends up defeated, because war is always a defeat from the beginning.
Let us listen to those who suffer its consequences, the victims and those who have lost everything.
Let us listen to the cries of young people, of ordinary individuals and peoples who are tired of the rhetoric of war and the empty slogans that constantly blame others and divide the world into good and evil, tired of leaders who find it difficult to sit around a table, to negotiate and find solution.
My thoughts also turn to the terribly tragic plight of war-torn Ukraine.
I pray daily, continue to invite others to pray, that ways of peace may be opened for this beloved people, that prisoners of war may be released and children returned home.
The promotion of peace and the liberation of prisoners are distinctive signs of the Christian faith (cf. Mt 5:9; Lk 4:18); they cannot be reduced to mere demonstrations of power.
During these days, you have also focused on the humanitarian issue of displaced persons in the Karabakh region.
I thank you for all you have done and continue to do to help those who are suffering..
I would also like to say thank you to Bishop Gevork Saroyan of the Armenian Apostolic Church for his presence during these days.
On your return, please convey my fraternal greetings to His Holiness Karekin II and to the dear people of Armeni. I had the opportunity to meet the first and the second Karekin in Buenos Aires.
Today, perhaps more than ever before, many Eastern Christians are fleeing conflicts or migrating in search of work and better living conditions. Many, therefore, are living in diaspora.
I know that you have reflected on the pastoral care of those living outside their traditional territories.
This is a timely and important problem.
For some Churches, the massive migrations of recent decades mean that most of their faithful now live outside their traditional territories, in places where pastoral care is often lacking due to a shortage of priests, structures and adequate formation.
As a result, those who have already been forced to leave their homelands are now in danger of losing their religious identity and, with the passing of generations, the spiritual heritage of the East, an inestimable treasure for the Catholic Church, is being weakened.
I am grateful to the Latin dioceses which welcome Eastern Christians and that respect their traditions.
I urge them to show particular concern, so that these, our brothers and sisters, may keep their rites alive and flourishing.
I encourage the Dicastery to work to this end, also by establishing principles and norms that can help Latin bishops to assist Eastern Catholics living in the Diaspora.
Thank you for all that you can do.
I thank all of you for your presence! I ask you, please, to pray for me. Thank you very much.
