The request during a meeting in the Vatican with some young priests and monks from the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The story of Monsignor Claudio Gugerotti, who brought Francis’ closeness to the victims of the earthquake to Aleppo: “So many elderly people alone and deprived of what is necessary. Huge supply difficulties in the province of Idlib. When the emergency is over, rebuild a future for all”.
Vatican City () – “Let there be no reasons or sanctions that prevent urgent and necessary aid to the population” in Syria devastated by the earthquake. This is what Pope Francis said today in a speech addressed to a delegation of young priests and monks from the Eastern Orthodox Churches with whom he met this morning at the Vatican. Due to a bad cold, the Pope gave them the prepared text in writing, but still wanted to meet them. And knowing that some religious from Syria were present, he took the opportunity to express “a particular closeness to this dear people, tested not only by the war, but also by the earthquake that, as in Turkey, has caused so many victims and terrible devastation Faced with the suffering of so many innocents, children, women, mothers, families, I hope that everything possible is done for the people.”
This Saturday and Sunday, the prefect of the Department for the Oriental Churches, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, paid a visit to Aleppo on behalf of Francis, and then traveled to Turkey, devastated by the earthquake. On the situation in Syria, the department wrote in a note on the trip, which was published today: “We were able to express to all of them the closeness and affection of the Holy Father, which was welcomed with great emotion. The testimony of how much unspeakable suffering was common lived in a context already exhausted by twelve years of war”.
Among the most serious situations that the prefect verified in Syria was “the condition, very frequent and dramatic, of the elderly who were left alone in their homes because their relatives emigrated, and who do not have a pension.” But Bishop Guggerotti also delved into the situation in the province of Idlib, “which is not under government control and where some 210 Christian families remain, who are assisted not only pastorally by two friars from the Custody of the Holy Land with whatever they can receive despite the enormous supply difficulties”.
“One has the impression – continues writing the department for the Eastern Churches – that the earthquake has further weakened a population exhausted by the war and by the effects of the sanctions, which made this land unrecognizable from its previous relative prosperity . For this reason, the prefect stressed strongly that it is necessary, once the emergency is over, to prepare a future that is also witness and commitment of Christians in favor of the entire Syrian population”.
And precisely that of common witness was the horizon that Pope Francis also indicated to the young priests and monks of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. “We must believe – he wrote them – that the more we walk together, the more Christ will mysteriously accompany us, because unity is a common pilgrimage”.
“We must desire unity with prayer, with all our hearts and strength, insistently, without getting tired,” he concluded. “Because if the desire for unity is extinguished, it is not enough to walk and talk: everything becomes something obligatory and formal If, on the other hand, the desire drives to open the doors to Christ together with the brother, everything changes”.
