Pope to new Ambassadors: Work for a more just and fraternal world

By Vatican News

The new non-resident Ambassadors to the Holy See whom Pope Francis received in the Vatican on Friday come from Jordan, Kazakhstan, Zambia, Mauritania, Uzbekistan, Madagascar, Estonia, Rwanda, Denmark and India.

They form part of a corps which represents some 183 States that currently have diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

Challenge of pandemic

In his discourse, Pope Francis told the new ambassadors they were beginning their mission at a time of “great challenge facing the entire human family.”

Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, he said, it was clear that 2020 was going to be a year “marked by urgent humanitarian needs, due to conflicts, violence and terrorism in different parts of our world.”

The Pope noted that “economic crises are causing hunger and mass migration, while climate change is increasing the risk of natural disasters, famine and drought.”

Quoting from the Extraordinary Moment of Prayer on 27 March of this year, he said, the crisis has made us realize “that we are in the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.”

Pope Francis also underlined that “the pandemic is aggravating the inequalities already present in our societies; as the poor and the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters risk being neglected, excluded and forgotten.”

Dialogue and cooperation

Today, perhaps more than ever, emphasised the Pope, “our increasingly globalized world urgently demands sincere and respectful dialogue and cooperation capable of uniting us in confronting the grave threats facing our planet and mortgaging the future of younger generations.”

And referring to his recent Encyclical Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis expressed the desire that “in this our time, by acknowledging the dignity of each human person, we can contribute to the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity.”

Highlighting the presence of the Holy See in the international community, he said it stands “at the service of the global common good, by drawing attention to the anthropological, ethical and religious aspects of the various questions that affect the lives of individuals, peoples and entire nations.”

Pope Francis concluded by expressing the hope that the diplomat’s activity as representatives of their nations to the Holy See would “foster the ‘culture of encounter’ needed to transcend the differences and divisions that so often stand in the way of realizing the high ideals and goals proposed by the international community.”  Each of us, he said, “is invited, in fact, to work daily for the building of an ever more just, fraternal and united world.”