“I don’t understand, but these things are hard to understand, how human beings can do this”, the Pope said.
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“I am close to the families of the victims and pray for them”.
Pope Francis said such barbarity leaves us stunned as we wonder how human hearts can think up and carry out such atrocities which “have shocked not only France but the whole world”.
“The path of violence and hatred can not resolve the problems of human and using the name of God to justify this path is blasphemy”, he said.
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The attack was one of at least seven individual incidents, including a bombing outside an global football match between France and Germany at the Stade de France on Friday night.
A special church service was scheduled to take place in Notre Dame Cathedral on Sunday evening to mourn the people killed in the attacks. The document in which the Islamic State claims responsibility for the attacks will be investigated by the French authorities.
A statement from the Vatican released on Friday declared the attacks “an attack on peace for all humanity” and called for “a decisive, supportive response on the part of all of us as we counter the spread of homicidal hatred in all its forms”. “Our final goal is the meeting with the resurrected Lord”. “And I would like to ask you: How many of you have thought of this? There will be a day in which I will meet the Lord, face-to-face”.
Jesus’ victory at the end times will be the triumph of his Cross, Francis said.
In Berlin around 500 people spontaneously began singing the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, following a minute’s silence in the German capital. “We are called to live the present, building our future with serenity and trust in God”.
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We are called rather “to watchfulness”, Francis said, that keeps us focused and ready at all times. It is the proof that self-sacrifice done out of love for another is “the only victorious power” and the only stable point in the midst of the tragedies and turmoil of the world.
