His watchwords were "encounter," "dialogue," "reconciliation" and "build bridges, not walls." Pope Francis, who reached out to the margins of society, has died at 88

"Francis repeatedly railed against the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, urging negotiations to end the fighting. In November 2024, he voiced his frustration to diplomats at the Vatican, saying, "I simply mention two failures of humanity today: Ukraine and Palestine, where there is suffering, where the arrogance of the invader prevails over dialogue."" 

Pope Francis, who reached out to the margins of society, has died at 88

Pope Francis exits the memorial to the victims of the 9/11 attacks on Sept. 25, 2015, in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

ROME — Pope Francis, the first non-European head of the Roman Catholic Church in more than a millennium, died at age 88.

He died Monday at his residence in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta, according to a statement from the Vatican.

Francis was one of the most popular popes in decades and a towering figure on the world stage, addressing not just Catholics but the men and women of our time.

The outspoken pope lent his voice to almost every modern issue facing the world, often taking the side of the marginalized and vulnerable. He spoke out against commercial exploitation of the environment, rich countries' unwillingness to accept migrants, the alienation caused by technology and the lucrative sale of weapons of war... READ MORE  https://www.npr.org/2025/04/21/1013050313/pope-francis-dead 

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ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS

Sala Regia
Monday, 25 November 2024

"In this regard, how can I not refer to the many ongoing armed conflicts that remain still unresolved, despite the fact that they cause immense sufferings for the countries at war and the entire human family. Here I would point to the hypocrisy of speaking of peace and dabbling in war. In some countries where there is much talk of peace, the highest yielding investments are in the production of arms. This hypocrisy always leads to failure. The failure of fraternity, the failure of peace. May the international community make the force of law prevail through dialogue, for dialogue “must be the soul of the international community”. [14] I simply mention two failures of humanity today: Ukraine and Palestine, where people are suffering, where the arrogance of the invader prevails over dialogue. Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you most heartily for taking part in this commemorative ceremony. Through the intercession of Mary, Queen of Peace, our Mother, I invoke God’s blessing upon the beloved nations of Chile and Argentina, which I likewise invoke upon all peoples who long for peace and concord, and to every man and woman committed to the cause of fraternity and social friendship."   https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2024/november/documents/20241125-atto-commemorativo.html

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ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
TO THE DELEGATION OF THE ʺUNIVERSAL PEACE COUNCILʺ

Consistory Hall
Monday, 25 November 2024

[Multimedia]

______________________________________

Dear friends,

I am pleased to have this opportunity to meet with you during your visit to Rome and I commend your dedication to the cause of peace in the Holy Land, which sadly has witnessed much violence and suffering through the centuries. Unfortunately, our own day is no different and for over a year now, the dark clouds of conflict have once more engulfed the region of the world you call home. It is terrible, terrible. 

The current situation makes the promotion of peace all the more important and I am delighted to see that your delegation is composed of young people from different backgrounds and faiths. This is a clear sign that the desire for peace is rooted in the human heart and is able to bring about unity in diversity. We all know, however, that your task is not easy. As a result, I would like to offer you three brief points to consider.

The first is that we need young people to carry out this important service because they possess a certain idealism, enthusiasm and hope that reminds all of us that a better world is possible, peace is possible. In particular, young people can help others to discover the crucial elements that prepare the way for peace: forgiveness and a willingness to let go of past prejudices and hurts. Young people are creative, but it is terrible to meet young people who have fallen prey to ideologies. In these cases, ideology takes the place of rational thought and the desire to do good. While we must always remember and learn from history, an unhealthy attachment to past hurts and prejudices can never lead to true and lasting peace. In fact, it only perpetuates the spiral of conflict and division.

The second point is always to engage in dialogue, since it is the principal tool at our disposal. “Approaching, speaking, listening, looking at, coming to know and understand one another, and to find common ground: all these things are summed up in the one word ‘dialogue’” (Fratelli Tutti, 198). Dialogue is the only path for peace, for encountering one another. Young people can be great artisans of peace through dialogue. 

The third is never to lose hope. Hope never disappoints. Do not lose hope. It is so easy to become discouraged when we see the devastating effects of war and hatred, not to mention poverty, hunger, discrimination and various other realities that threaten the prospect of peace. They are the fruit of war. This may lead us to think that our engagement in dialogue is futile because it produces few concrete results. Perhaps you may have even been criticized for focusing on the need to dialogue in order to advance the cause of peace. In those moments, remember that anything worth doing is not easy. It requires sacrifice and a willingness to recommit ourselves each day, especially when things seem not to go our way. Keep hope alive, dear young people, always bearing in mind that we are all part of one human family. We are all brothers and sisters, and efforts to promote reconciliation, harmony and peace will always be worth our time and effort. And of course, never lose your sense of humour, that healthy joy! That is very important! Do not lose the capacity for joy, which helps us to see things more clearly.

Thank you for your visit and I assure you of my prayers for your commitment to peace in the Holy Land. I bless all of you and I ask, please, to remember me in your prayers. Thank you!

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Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2024/november/documents/20241125-universal-peace-council.html 

 

From Buenos Aires to Rome: Key dates in the life of Pope Francis

March 13, 2013: Elected 266th pope, the first from the Americas, the first Jesuit and the first to take the name of Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi.

Dec. 17, 1936: Jorge Mario Bergoglio is born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the eldest of five children to Mario Jose Bergoglio, an accountant from Italy, and Regina María Sívori, the daughter of Italian immigrants.    READ MORE  https://www.reflector.com/news/national/from-buenos-aires-to-rome-key-dates-in-the-life-of-pope-francis/article_d36561a2-681a-5aef-8334-d5e00b596159.html

Nour Elassy Poet and writer based in Gaza: Why I won’t stop telling Gaza’s stories. I continue to report from Gaza, not because I believe my words may end the war, but because I want to make a record of our existence – our dignity, resilience, hope.

Nour Elassy

Poet and writer based in Gaza

There is a look I have come to recognise – the way a child’s eyes widen when they see me, wearing a press vest and holding the microphone. It is not curiosity. It is hope. A fragile, desperate hope that maybe I carry answers I do not have.

“When will this end?” a boy once asked me, tugging at my sleeve as I filmed near his shelter. He could not have been older than five, his feet bare and caked with dust.

His friends gathered around him, watching me as if I held some secret key to the future. “When can we go home?”

I did not know what to say. I never do. Because, like them, I am displaced. Like them, I do not know when or if this war will ever end. But in their eyes, I am someone who might know. Someone who, by simply being there with a camera, could change something.

And so they cling to me. They follow me through rubble and across broken streets, asking questions I cannot answer. Sometimes, they do not say anything at all. They just walk alongside me, quietly, as if my presence alone is enough to fill the silence that war has left behind.

I cannot count how many times a mother has pulled me aside after an interview, held my hand tightly and whispered, “Please … can you help us?” Their voices tremble not with anger, but exhaustion – the kind of exhaustion that sinks into your bones and never leaves.

They do not ask for much. A few more blankets. Soap. Medicine for their children. And I stand there, my camera still rolling, nodding, trying to explain that I am here to tell their stories, not to deliver aid. But what is a story to a new mother who does not even have a mattress to sleep on, let alone to her newborn?

I relive these moments every time I sit down to write. They replay in my mind like echoes – every face, every voice. And with each word I put on the page, I wonder if it will make a difference. I wonder if the people who read my words, who watch my reports, will understand that beneath the politics and the headlines, there is this: a woman washing her infant’s clothes in sewage water, a boy picking through rubbish to find something to sell, a girl missing school because she cannot afford sanitary pads.

I do not cover politics. I do not need to. The war speaks for itself in the smallest of details.

It is in the tangle of feet beneath tents, where families share spaces too small to breathe. It is in the way children cough at night, their chests heavy from the damp and the cold. It is in the sight of fathers standing by the sea, staring out as if the waves might carry away their burdens.

There is a kind of grief here that does not scream. It lingers, soft and persistent, in every corner of life.

One day, while reporting near a neglected group of tents, a girl handed me a drawing she had made on the back of an old cereal box. It was simple – flowers and birds – but in the middle, she had drawn a house, whole and untouched. “This is my house,” she told me. “Before.”

Before.

That word carries so much weight in Gaza. Before the air strikes. Before the displacement. Before war stripped away everything but survival.

I write these stories not because I believe they will end the war, but because they are proof that we existed. That even in the face of everything, we held on to something. Dignity. Resilience. Hope.

There is a scene I return to often. A woman standing at the entrance of her shelter, brushing her daughter’s hair with her fingers because she cannot afford a comb. She hums softly a lullaby that drowns out the horrific sound of close air strikes and distant shelling. Her daughter leans into her, eyes half-closed, safe for just a moment.

I do not know what peace looks like, but I think it might feel like that.

This is the Gaza I know. This is the Gaza I write about. And no matter how many times I tell these stories, I will keep telling them, because they matter. Because, one day, I hope that when a child asks me when the war will end, I can finally give them the answer they have been waiting for.

Until then, I carry their voices with me, and I will make sure the world hears them.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/1/14/why-i-wont-stop-telling-gazas-stories 

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

This man is everywhere your bombs have been for the last 19 years, from Iraq to Syria to Yemen to Libya to Somalia and beyond.. and in Palestine he has been standing like this for 70 years in a concentration camp, under your bombs.

from Mike Hanini Odetalla

"      For all those Americans and British who, while bombing the Middle East for 17 years, refuse refugees because they are 'coming here not to work but to live off our benefits and social security' , I'd love to see you work, against all odds, like this man.

       For all my fellow Arabs and Muslims who say we are useless, haven't contributed anything to mankind in decades, take a good look at the determination of your brother here. 

       For all those voters going out to vote on November, have some mercy on this man and the millions like him. He is everywhere your bombs have been for the last 19 years, from Iraq to Syria to Yemen to Libya to Somalia and beyond.. and in Palestine he has been standing like this for 70 years in a concentration camp, under your bombs. 

Thanks for listening, thanks for caring.
 
Love & Peace.

Via Hanaan   "

The Old Couple, 2000 painting by Palestinian Ismail Shammout: Detail from the mural (Life Prevails)

The Old Couple, 2000 painting by Palestinian Ismail Shammout Detail from the mural (Life Prevails)