The Pope Francis has recalled that there are many conflict zones in the world such as Yemen, Burma or Syria, which “do not enter” into the collective imagination “because they are not part of cultivated Europe” and has stated that “forgotten wars are a sin ”.
“Today we are all worried, and it is good that we are, with a war here at the gates of Europe, but for years there have been wars in Syria, think of Yemen, Burma, Africa. These countries do not enter because they are not part of cultivated Europe…”, the Pope pointed out when receiving at the Vatican this morning the editors and collaborators of the magazine ‘Mondo e Missione’ (‘World and Mission’) of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (P.I.M.E.) on the 150th anniversary of its foundation.
The Pontiff has claimed the work of this publication to “be the voice of the voiceless” and to side with “those who do not have the right to speak or are not heard, the poorest, the oppressed minorities, the oppressed minorities, the victims of forgotten wars”. In this way, he has underlined that the most characteristic feature of the magazine is to tell the stories “of places or situations that few talk about”, which he has defined as “the geographical and existential peripheries in a world where communication has apparently shortened the distances, although they continue to be relegated to the margins”.
The Pope has condemned that “ideological barriers have multiplied” and explained that the challenge remains to go there to make known “the beauty and richness of differences”, but also the numerous “distortions and injustices of societies” which are marked by “serious inequalities”.
Francis has recognized the work of missionaries “who work silently and tenaciously from below to build a different world, tracing paths of solidarity and reconciliation in contexts marked by crisis or violence.” Thus, he has recognized that the letters and chronicles of the missionaries “have accurately portrayed the contexts and the life of the populations with which they came into contact.”
