Pope to commemorate 2014 invocation for peace in Holy Land

Deborah Castellano Lubov

Ten years ago, Pope Francis organized a invocation for peace in the Holy Land in the Vatican gardens. Ten years later, as war devastated the region, he prepared to renew his appeal with a capital gesture.

The commemoration will take place in the same place and on the same date, but in a totally devastated and devastating scenario, confirmed the director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Matteo Bruni.

On June 8, 2014, Pope Francis, Shimon Peres, then President of the State of Israel, President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, and Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, made history in an unprecedented event in which leaders planted an olive tree for peace and addressed those in the Vatican Gardens.

On this occasion, Pope Francis reminded the presidents that our world is not only “a heritage bequeathed to us by past generations”, but that it is also “a loan lent to us by our children: our tired children, exhausted by conflicts and the desire to live.” for the dawn of peace, our children who beg us to tear down the walls of enmity and embark on the path of dialogue and peace, so that love and friendship may prevail.

In his address, the Holy Father also reaffirmed that the restoration of peace, “much more than war”, requires courage.

“It requires the courage to say yes to encounter and no to conflict: yes to dialogue and no to violence; yes to negotiations and no to hostilities; yes to respecting agreements and no to provocative acts; yes to sincerity and no to duplicity. All of this requires courage, strength and tenacity.

The Pope had visited the Holy Land a few months earlier, where he made a pilgrimage from May 24 to 26 to mark the 50th anniversary of the meeting between Pope Saint Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem.

Today more than ever, Pope Francis renews his call for peace in the homeland of the Lord.

Salvatore Cernuzio contributed to this article.