“Your words will carry a special weight as they will come at a time when the threat of a return to war hangs over Armenia and Azerbaijan and the resulting destabilisation could affect the entire Caucasus region”, reads the letter to Pope Francis. We offer money, we drop it there, but we avoid touching their hand.
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The Pope let the audience in on a little secret, saying that he makes the leper’s prayer of “Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean” his own every night.
When a poor person comes, he said, “we can be generous, we can be compassionate, but usually we do not touch him”.
Pope Francis said he would travel to Armenia June 24-26 to promote closer bonds with the Armenian Orthodox church, honor the Armenian people’s steadfast faith in the face of tragedy and support them in their efforts to build a peaceful future.
“Everything this man – who was considered impure – says and does is an expression of his faith!” the pope said.
The leper’s plea, he continued, serves as a lesson to Christians that “when we present ourselves to Jesus, long speeches aren’t necessary” and that there is no place to feel safe other than with God and his infinite mercy. If this leper broke the law, Jesus did likewise by touching the man and cleansing him of the disease. A Christian excludes no one. He reaches out to Christ, saying: “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean”. And finally, Jesus asks the man to bear witness to the miracle to the priest and thus the leper becomes a missionary. On arriving in St. Peter’s Square, Francis embraced them and then asked them to accompany him to his chair and remain near him during his weekly catechesis and greetings.
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A representative of the group told CNA that the refugees are being assisted now by the Catholic charity organization Caritas in Florence, Italy.
