Pope Francis: Peace for Dear Syria

Pope Francis has delivered a passionate plea for peace in his first Easter Sunday message since being elected.

Francis used his “Urbi et Orbi” address to call for peace in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and across the globe.

He singled out “dear Syria”, calling for a political solution for the crisis.

Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar and pilgrims have attended church across the world, according to the BBC.

In past years there have been two parts to the Pope’s Easter message – a heartfelt appeal for peace in the world’s trouble spots, and multilingual greetings to the crowds thronging St Peter’s Square.

There were 250,000 people from more than 100 countries present this morning.

But Pope Francis decided to cut the vernacular greetings.

He is, of course, most comfortable speaking his native Spanish, and he is also completely fluent in Italian as his family is from Piedmont in northern Italy.

Pope Francis was, however, almost incomprehensible when he tried out a few words in English to the crowds in St Peter’s Square last week.

So he decided not to read out the “Happy Easter” greetings that had been prepared for him in 65 different languages including difficult-to-pronounce oriental tongues.

Popes John Paul II and Benedict used to struggle to pronounce even a short phrase in Burmese, Chinese or Korean, Pope Francis chose not even to try.

Pope Francis concluded by saying: “Peace in the whole world, still divided by greed looking for easy gain, wounded by the selfishness which threatens human life and the family, selfishness that continues in human trafficking, the most extensive form of slavery in this 21st Century.”

M.D