Pope Francis meets relatives and close friends of the more than 80 victims of the attack in Nice during a special audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican September 24, 2016.
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VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis met one by one with relatives of the victims of this summer’s truck attack in Nice, France, at the Vatican Saturday, encouraging them to resist what he called the great temptation to “respond to hatred with hatred and to violence with violence”.
At the start, Francis apologized for speaking Italian, explaining that his French isn’t good.
“You can respond to the assaults of the devil only with the works of God, which are forgiveness, love and respect for one’s neighbours”, the Pope said.
The ceremony was attended by about 1,000 people, including members of Nice’s Jewish community as well as a local Muslim imam.
Francis said political and religious leaders must make it their urgent priority to establish “sincere dialogue and fraternal relations among all, especially among all those who believe in a God who is one and merciful”. Less than two weeks later, two young ISIL adherents murdered an elderly French priest, Father Jacques Hamel, in his church, prompting Pope Francis to declare the “the world is at war”.
After speaking briefly, the pope descended from the pulpit and spent more than 45 minutes meeting those who attended the ceremony, many of whom were in tears.
Bekri hailed the pope’s “intense humanism”, expressed through his visit to mainly Muslim refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Then Pope Francis recalled how the drama that unfolded in Nice has moved people from every quarter to significant gestures of solidarity, and thanked all those, who acted as first responders and who continue to be devoted even today to serving and lending support to all the families affected.
In his speech, Pope Francis praised all those who went to the aid of the wounded, the victims, and their families, after the attack, both Catholic and organizations of other religions. Vincent Delhommel Desmarest, 49, who runs a restaurant on the Promenade des Anglais, the scene of the Nice tragedy, said he has been on sick leave ever since and now sees a psychologist three times a week.
‘I don’t sleep at night. “The whole scene of the lorry moving, the mutilated bodies, decapitated, the entrails.”, he said.
Last year, the right-wing newspaper Libero headlined its story on the Paris attacks that killed about 130 people: “Islamic Bastards”. He has chose to create a local association to support the victims of that bad night.
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More than 80 people died when Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel plowed a 20-ton truck into crowds on the Promenade des Anglais seafront in Nice during a fireworks celebration on France’s key national holiday.
