In his weekly general audience, Pope Francis reveals what he said on his apostolic journey to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, praying that “the seeds of God's Kingdom of love, justice and peace may germinate.”

In a sense, the pope’s messages all amount to the same thing: Hello and God bless you. But there is a care in the language that is striking.

Pope Francis expressed his “spiritual closeness” and “solidarity” with those affected by a pair of powerful earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria Feb. 6.

Pope Francis hit out strongly against the way people have sought to manipulate Benedict’s death. “People who instrumentalize such a good person, [a man] of God, almost I would say a holy father of the church, have no ethics,” he said. “They are of a party, not of the church.”

Pope Francis repeated his pressing call for an end to the violence that has forced millions into camps for refugees or the internally displaced in South Sudan.

Pope Francis is on an ecumenical pilgrimage for reconciliation and peace with Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury; and Iain Greenshields, the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.