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  Use ‘weapons of love’ to fight terrorism: Pope Francis

Use ‘weapons of love’ to fight terrorism: Pope Francis

REUTERS/AFP/AP
Published : Mar 28, 2016, 5:39 am IST
Updated : Mar 28, 2016, 5:39 am IST

Pope Francis urged the world in his Easter message on Sunday to use the “weapons of love” to combat the evil of “blind and brutal violence”, following the attacks in Brussels.

Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi message at end of the Easter mass, in St. Peter's Square. (Photo: AP)
 Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi message at end of the Easter mass, in St. Peter's Square. (Photo: AP)

Pope Francis urged the world in his Easter message on Sunday 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, Pope Francis delivered an Easter Sunday Mass under tight security for tens of thousands of people in a sun-drenched St. Peter’s Square.

Afterwards, 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.

“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 att-acks 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. The 79-year-old Arg-entine 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”.

Pope Francis tempered his message with a denunciation of “blind” terrorism, recalling victims of attacks in Europe, Africa and elsewhere.

The former King and Queen of Belgium, Albert II and Paola, who is Italian, attended the Mass.

In other parts of his address, Pope 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”.

He urged Europe “not to forget those men and women seeking a better future, an ever more numerous throng of migrants and refugees — including many children — fleeing from war, hunger, poverty and social injustice.”

Pope 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.

Security was very tight around the square, which was bedecked with more than 35,000 flowers and plants donated by the Netherlands. To the delight of the devotees, Pope Francis completed a whirl through the square, made colourful with sprays of tulips and other spring flowers, in his open-topped pope-mobile. He leaned over barriers to shake hands, as the vehicle ventured past the Vatican’s confines, with his bodyguards jogging alongside on the boulevard.

The police checked people several times at various points along the app-roach the square and subjected those with entry tickets to body and bag se-arches even before they passed through metal det-ectors. Security sources said the reinforcements had arrived in Rome from other Italian cities.

For years, Islamist militants have made threats against Catholic targets in Rome. In 2015, a website used by ISIS militants ran a photo montage showing its black flag flying from the obelisk at the centre of St. Peter’s Square.