VATICAN CITY—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, as well as expressing dismay that people fleeing war or poverty are being denied welcome as European countries squabble over the refugee crisis.
But Francis also urged the world to use the “weapons of love” to combat the evil of “blind and brutal violence,” following the attacks in Brussels.
After a week of somber religious events commemorating Jesus’ death, Francis said an Easter Sunday Mass under tight security for tens of thousands of people in a sun-drenched St. Peter’s Square.
The people patiently endured long lines, backpack inspections and metal-detecting checks to enter St. Peter’s Square. Under a brilliant sun, they listened to Francis deliver the traditional Easter noon speech from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
To the pilgrims’ delight, Francis completed a whirl through the square, in his open-topped popemobile after celebrating Mass on the steps of the basilica.
The Pope leaned over barriers to shake hands, as the vehicle ventured past the Vatican’s confines, with his bodyguards jogging alongside on the boulevard.
‘Urbi et Orbi’
Afterward, in his traditional, twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” (To the City and the World) message, he spoke of violence,
injustice and threats to peace in many parts of the world.
Francis said, for the sake of the faithful, Jesus who rose after death by crucifixion “triumphed over evil and sin.”
He expressed hope that “will draw us closer to the victims of terrorism, that blind and brutal form of violence.”
“May he (the risen Jesus) draw us closer on this Easter feast to the victims of terrorism, that blind and brutal form of violence which continues to shed blood in different parts of the world,” he said, speaking from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
He mentioned recent attacks in Belgium, where at least 31 people were killed by Islamist militants, as well as those in Turkey, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Iraq.
“With the weapons of love, God has defeated selfishness and death,” the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholic said from the same balcony from where he first appeared to the world on the night of his election on March 13, 2013.
Defeat evil with hope
The 79-year-old Argentine Pontiff urged people to channel the hope of Easter in order to defeat “the evil that seems to have the upper hand in the life of so many people.”
The Pope condemned the Brussels attacks several times during the past week, including at a Good Friday service where he said followers of religions who carried out acts of fundamentalism or terrorism were profaning God’s name.
The former king and queen of Belgium, Albert II and Paola, who is Italian, attended the Mass and the Pope greeted them afterward.
EASTER VIGIL Pope Francis holds a pastoral staff as he leads an Easter vigil service at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on Saturday night. In his “Urbi et Orbi” message on Easter Sunday, he urged the use of “weapons of love” to fight the evil of terrorism. AP
In other parts of his address, Francis expressed the hope that recent talks could resolve the conflict in Syria in order to end the “sad wake of destruction, death, contempt for humanitarian law and the breakdown of civil concord.”
‘Rejection’ of migrants
He spoke out against the “rejection” of migrants and refugees, saying “the Easter message of the risen Christ … invites us not to forget those men and women seeking a better future, an ever more numerous throng of migrants and refugees … fleeing from war, hunger, poverty and social injustice.”
“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,” he said.
The European Union and Turkey have agreed to stop the flow of migrants to Europe in return for political and financial concessions for Ankara.
Turkey and The Aegean islands have been the main route for migrants and refugees pouring into Europe in the past year.
Francis called for dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, and resolutions to conflicts and political tensions in Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Burundi, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Ukraine.
Don’t lose hope
On Saturday night, after a bleak Holy Week, the Pope led the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics into Easter celebrations by urging them not to lose hope in a gloomy world.
“Let us not allow darkness and fear to distract us and control us,” Francis said in a homily at an evening Easter vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
The Holy Week services leading up to Easter, already the most somber in the Christian liturgical calendar because they commemorate Jesus’ betrayal and death by crucifixion, have been further dampened by the attacks in Brussels.
But hope was the theme of Saturday night’s service. The Pope used the word about 20 times in his brief homily, woven around the Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion.
“May the Lord free us … from being Christians without hope, who live as if the Lord were not risen, as if our problems were the center of our lives,” he said.
Lesson for Christians
At the start of the service, the basilica was in darkness to signify Jesus’ tomb before his resurrection. Then the Pope, cardinals, bishops and members of the congregation lit candles and finally the basilica’s lights were turned on in a symbolic show of light after the darkness of Good Friday, which recalls Jesus’ death.
In his homily, Francis said the hope that Easter brought was a lesson for the Christian faithful to cast aside the pessimism that could “imprison” people inside of themselves.
“We see and will continue to see problems both inside and out. They will always be there,” he said.
But he insisted: “Let us not allow darkness and fear to distract us and control our hearts.”
“Today is the celebration of our hope. It is so necessary today,” he said.
The Easter message recalling Christ’s resurrection, he said, “awakens and resurrects hope in hearts burdened by sadness.”
In his fourth Easter season since his election in 2013, Francis also baptized 12 adult converts to Catholicism hailing from China, South Korea and other countries around the world. Reports from the wires