Amid the tightest security ever for an outdoor Mass at the Vatican, Pope Francis on Easter Sunday lashed out at the “blind and brutal” terrorism afflicting Europe, Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
Five days after Islamic State attacks in Brussels killed 31 people, extraordinary security controls left some faithful waiting in line for hours and forced some to watch the Mass from up to three-quarters of a mile away from St. Peter’s Square. Even so, the ceremony drew as many as 200,000 on a sunny and crisp Easter morning, according to media reports.
Speaking from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis lamented the difficulties of political and economic refugees looking to settle in Europe, and he discussed the religious significance of the Jesus resurrection symbolized by Easter, something he called a “message of life” for the world.
“This day invites us not to forget those men and women seeking a better future, an ever more numerous throng of migrants and refugees, including many children, fleeing war, hunger, poverty and social injustice,” the pontiff said.
Terrorism was a dominant theme Sunday, from the scores of police and military personnel checking bags and scanning crowds to the pope’s message of rebirth, which he said he hoped would “draw us closer to the victims of terrorism, a blind and brutal form of violence.”
The Vatican and Rome have attracted repeated threats from extremist groups in recent years, something Francis has tried to confront in part by reaching out to other faiths. On Good Friday, for example, he washed the feet of Christian, Muslim and Hindu migrants. Francis, at the start of the fourth year of his papacy, has made repeated outreach to other faiths.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/03/27/pope-terrorism-easter-security/82317990/
Its website ironically touts one of its ‘bear nights’ with a video of a hairy man stripping down and changing into a priest’s outfit.
A Vatican department, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, owns hundreds of exclusive properties in central Rome, was also singled out in the document.
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