The pope sees his visit here as another way to get people in Europe and elsewhere to understand that the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II requires a global solution.
“It seemed to me, right from the beginning, that Francis’ style of pontificate was like a punch in the stomach from the Holy Spirit to wake us up,” Cardinal Angelo Scola says in this exclusive interview.
Pope Francis to young people: “You have been entrusted with an exciting but also challenging task: to stand tall while everything around us seems to be collapsing; to be sentinels prepared to see the light...to be builders amid the many ruins of today’s world; to be capable of dreaming.”
The Vatican issued a statement insisting that it is “absolutely necessary to reactivate direct dialogue” between Israelis and Palestinians “to achieve a two-state solution.”
Meeting at the Vatican with Pope Francis, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended an invitation to Francis to become the third pope in history to visit India.