Scottish Catholic Observer

Pope Francis has encouraged religious leaders from around the world to cooperate to remind humanity that God exists.

Earlier today, the Holy Father received several dozen representatives of the various Christian churches and other world religions who attended his inauguration Mass at the Vatican yesterday.

Pope Francis told them that— for the good of all people, the care of the poor and the future of the earth—religions must cooperate in reminding modern men and women that God exists and has a plan for their lives and their behaviour.

“The Catholic Church knows the importance of promoting friendship and respect among men and women of different religious traditions,” he added, before going on to say that the Church ‘is equally aware of the responsibility that all have for this world, for creation—which we must love and protect—and we can do much good for those who are poor, weak and suffering, to favour justice, to promote reconciliation, to build peace.’

The Pope also told the religious leaders that he and they have an obligation to be close to people who do not belong to a faith community, but who are ‘searching for the truth, goodness and beauty.’ Such people, he said, ‘are our precious allies in the commitment to defending human dignity in building peaceful coexistence among peoples and in safeguarding creation.’

Before meeting the entire group, Pope Francis held private meetings with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the first among equals of Orthodox bishops and a frequent visitor to the Vatican during Pope Benedict XVI’s Papacy, and with Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of ecumenical relations for the Russian Orthodox Church.

At the beginning of the audience with all of the religious leaders, Patriarch Bartholomew—who, yesterday, became the first Patriarch of Constantinople to attend a Papal inauguration in more than 950 years—addressed the Pope, congratulating him on his election and emphasising the importance of the Catholic Church’s involvement in the search for Christian unity as a sign of the credibility of the Gospel message and a way of strengthening the good Christians can do in the world.

He said Pope Francis’ choice of a simple Papal style is a sign of his focus ‘on the essential, which fills with joy the hearts’ of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, because it demonstrates the priority of ‘justice and mercy’ in Christian teaching.

—[email protected]