Francis also told the Polish clergy that as “Jesus’ closest disciples”, their lives should be marked by modesty and humility.
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Islamists Abdel Malik, along with Adel Kermiche cut the throat of Father Jacques Hamel at a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, on Tuesday.
He issued the call as he celebrated a Mass in a shrine in Poland dedicated to the late Polish pope, St. John Paul II.
The pontiff, who ends a five-day trip to Poland today, addressed a crowd of young people gathered at World Youth Day – an global Catholic, youth jamboree.
Like a soccer match, life “only takes players on the first string and has no room for benchwarmers”, the pope young people at the World Youth Day prayer vigil July 30.
However, he did express his feelings, writing in the Auschwitz memorial’s guest book in Spanish: “Lord, have pity on your people”.
Last night, when he visited the Church of St. Francis, which houses the memory of two Polish Franciscan martyrs, Zbigniew Strzalkowski e Michal Tomaszek, killed by the “Sendero Luminoso” movement in Peru in 1991, the Pope focussed specifically on contemporary “terrorist” violence.
Pilgrims in both groups said they were not sure how to overcome the political barriers that exist across the two communities, but they thought their faith could be a bridge.
“Our only answer to this world at war has a name: it’s called fraternity”.
Some of the faithful had camped out overnight in the field 13 miles from the city, after an evening with the Pope attracted 1.6 million people, according to organisers from World Youth Day. His visit, the first ever by a pontiff, was part of his overall efforts aimed at healing centuries of bitterness between the Vatican and Jews.
He listened silently as Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, sang from Psalm 130 and a priest read the psalm in Polish, just metres (yards) away from the end of the single rail track where cattle cars brought hundreds of thousands of prisoners to the camp.
“How can we fail to hear its echo in the great appeal of St. John Paul II: “Open the doors”?”
Francis prayed before the chapel of St. Faustina, where she is buried.
Some relics now in Krakow are on loan, like those from a French church of Mary Magdalene, a cherished model of mercy for the current pontiff, who thinks the world now needs more of that quality.
While there, Pope Francis signed the sanctuary’s guestbook with the words: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifices”.
“We are here today because the Lord has called us together”.
On Friday he visited the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he met with concentration camp survivors as well as aging saviors who helped Jews escape certain doom.
The pope used his several encounters with the young pilgrims – from mega-gatherings to a private lunch with only a dozen people from five continents – to encourage a new generation to work for peace, reconciliation and justice.
John Paul II, who was Pope from 1978 until his death in 2005, was a native of southern Poland. Wrap them in the mantle of Your divine mercy.
“That is the same thing that is happening here, especially because this World Youth Day is very much tied to the Year of Mercy” he said.
Francis then rested for a bit ahead of an evening vigil with the youth in a huge meadow just outside Krakow.
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Before he led the mass to celebrate the 1,050th anniversary of the baptism of Poland, the Pope prayed before Poland’s holiest icon – the Black Madonna of Jasna Góra.
