Pope Francis told young Catholics to stop being “couch potatoes” yesterday as he urged Europe to overcome fears triggered by the refugee influx.
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The visit to Auschwitz came on the third day of a five-day visit to Poland that includes meetings with young pilgrims taking part in World Youth Day, a global youth celebration.
“We cannot overcome hatred with more hatred, violence with more violence and terror with more terror”, said Francis. We came for another reason: “to leave a mark”, he said.
“Dear young people, we didn’t come into this world to vegetate, to take it easy, to make our lives a comfortable sofa to fall asleep on”, he said.
Recalling Natalia and Miguel’s experiences, the pope thanked them for sharing their struggles and said they are a “living sign of what God’s mercy wants to accomplish in us”.
Pope Francis is the third consecutive pope to visit the site, where more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed by Adolf Hitler’s forces during World War II.
The spokesman added that Francis was arriving at the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Krakow on Saturday when we met with the girl who had been fitted with prosthetic limbs that he had paid for.
In the context of the past month, however, the scope of the pope’s prayer seemed much broader, embracing several recent terrorist incidents including the brutal murder of a French priest by Islam State-inspired assassins just as the Krakow World Youth Day opened.
In response, Francis asked the young people to pray for Syria and other places in conflict and said: “Once and for all, may we realize that nothing justifies shedding the blood of a brother or sister”.
At the vigil on Saturday evening, he called on the world’s young to “teach us how to live in diversity, in dialogue, to experience multiculturalism not as a threat, but an opportunity”.
Another message that Francis countered head-on was the world of computer screens and video games, which he says are contributing to a “paralysis” among young people.
The youth gathering was Francis’s main focus during his pilgrimage to Poland, but over five days in this deeply Catholic nation he also prayed in silence at the former Nazi Auschwitz death camp and implored God to keep away a devastating wave of terrorism now hitting the world.
Pope Francis greets faithful as he arrives to celebrates a Holy Mass on the meadows in Brzegi, Poland, Sunday, July 31, 2016.
After more than 1 million people arrived on Europe’s southern shores past year, some nations on the continent, notably in central and eastern Europe, hastily built fences to keep the refugees out.
Referring to the enormous crowds he drew day after day in a country where St. Pope John Paul II was born, Francis joked that “Poland was invaded, this time by young people”. Speaking at a press conference after the meal, one of the volunteers said she asked him how he felt following his election to the pontificate in March 2013, to which he replied: “I felt a bit of peace, and I haven’t lost this peace”.
“The life of Jesus’ closest disciples, which is what we are called to be, is shaped by concrete love, a love, in other words, marked by service and availability”, the Pope told the congregation during Saturday’s Mass at the shrine of St. John Paul II in Krakow, .
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The Pope has rebuked alienated youths who spend the day slouching on a sofa, in a speech aimed at rousing them to get moving and make the world a better place.
