Pope Francis calls for peace in the Middle East in homily

(ANSA) – Vatican City, December 9 – Pope Francis on Monday urged followers to pray for peace in the Middle East in a homily from his Vatican residence at Saint Martha’s House, reported Vatican Radio. The Patriarch of Alexandria, Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak, who heads the Coptic Catholic Church, was in attendance, visiting for a public demonstration of ‘ecclesiastical communion’ with the pope.

Pope Francis called for prayer “with faith that peace can rise again in the Holy Land and the entire Middle East” to overcome “overly recurrent and sometimes dramatic” disruptions.

The pontiff prayed for a “stop to enmity and division” and for peace agreements “often paralysed by opposition and dark interests” quickly to resume. The pope added a prayer for “real guarantees” for “religious freedom for all” along with “the right of Christians to live serenely where they were born, in the country they have loved as citizens for 2000 years”.