NEWS STORY: Pope Prays for Young Victims of Adult Violence, Urges Hostage Release

c. 2004 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ Pope John Paul II prayed Wednesday (Sept. 8) for the children of Beslan, Russia, subjected to “a cruel fanaticism and insane contempt for human life,” and for all young victims of adult violence. He also called on militants to free unharmed two Italian female aid workers taken […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Pope John Paul II prayed Wednesday (Sept. 8) for the children of Beslan, Russia, subjected to “a cruel fanaticism and insane contempt for human life,” and for all young victims of adult violence. He also called on militants to free unharmed two Italian female aid workers taken hostage in Iraq.

For the second straight week, the 84-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff used his regular general audience as a platform for an urgent appeal for an end to the escalating violence in the Middle East and Russia.


This week he took the unusual step of suspending his current series of talks on the psalms and canticles of Vespers to press the need to “protect and defend the world’s children” and to “build a future of peace for them.”

Noting that on Wednesday the Catholic Church was celebrating the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the pope said the thought of the infant Mary brought to mind children who were “victims of a barbarous hostage-taking and tragically slaughtered” in their school in the North Ossetian town of Beslan.

Authorities said the siege of the school that ended Friday with a battle between pro-Chechen gunmen and Russian security forces left more than 325 hostages dead, 700 wounded and 100 missing. The pope sent a condolence message to the Russian government Saturday.

“They were inside a school, a place for learning the values that give sense to history, culture and the civilization of peoples: reciprocal respect, solidarity, justice and peace,” the pope said. “Inside those walls they instead experienced outrage, hate and death, the evil consequences of a cruel fanaticism and insane contempt for human life.”

John Paul said he thought also of “all the innocent children who in every part of the Earth are victims of the violence of adults, children forced to bear arms and taught to hate and kill, children induced to beg in the streets, used for easy gain, children abandoned, deprived of the warmth of the family and of future prospects, children who die of hunger, children killed in so many conflicts in various regions of the world.”

A priest then read five prayers “for justice, peace and solidarity” in the world. They included a prayer for “the many people kidnapped in the tormented land of Iraq and, in particular, for the two young Italian volunteers kidnapped yesterday in Baghdad, that they all may be treated with respect and swiftly restored unharmed to the love of their dear ones.”

Gunmen broke into the offices of the Italian charity A Bridge to Baghdad on Tuesday and seized Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29, and two Iraqis. The organization, which has worked for many years in Iraq, opposed the United Nations sanctions against Baghdad and the U.S.-led invasion.


The kidnappings followed the abduction and execution Aug. 26 of Enzo Baldoni, an Italian journalist, by a group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq, which had demanded the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq.

In Milan, where some 10,000 people were attending a meeting on “Men and Religion: The Courage of a New Humanism,” high-ranking representatives of Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Iraqi Catholics and the Iraqi interim congress joined in an appeal for the “immediate and unconditional” release of the new hostages.

The Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy made a similar appeal “in the name of the God of mercy and of peace.”

In a message to the Milan meeting, the pope said that as the third anniversary of “that terrible Sept. 11, 2001, that carried death to the heart of the United States” approached, “unfortunately, terrorism seems to be augmenting its threat of destruction.”

But, he said: “Peace is always possible. Conflict is never inevitable. And religions have a particular duty to remind all men and women of this knowledge.”

DEA/PH END POLK

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!