Church in the World

Pope tells world to look to its ‘dark regions’

THE POPE ON Easter Sunday threw a spotlight on Africa and the Middle East as the parts of the globe in most urgent need of relief from suffering and conflict.

Speaking to more than 150,000 people who gathered in St Peter's Square for his Urbi et Orbi ("to the city and the world") blessing, the Pope said Christ was looking for men and women to help him affirm his victory over death by "using his own weapons ... of justice and truth, mercy, forgiveness and love".

In what is his most widely broadcast message of the Christian year, he called on Christians to engage in the "peaceful battle" against the forces of death that was "launched by Christ's Resurrection" and to help bring hope to the "dark regions of the world".

"If it is true that death no longer has power over man and over the world, there still remain very many, in fact too many, signs of its former dominion," the Pope said in Italian from the exterior central loggia of St Peter's Basilica. He pointed to Africa's "unending conflicts", as well as the Israeli-Palestinian situation and a lack of peace and stability throughout the Middle East.

"Reconciliation - difficult, but indispensable - is a precondition for a future of overall security and peaceful coexistence," the Pope said. "At a time of world food shortage, of financial turmoil, of old and new forms of poverty, of disturbing climate change, of violence and deprivation which force many to leave their homelands in search of a less precarious form of existence, of the ever-present threat of terrorism, of growing fears over the future, it is urgent to rediscover grounds for hope."

Pope Benedict, who was 82 on 16 April, said the Resurrection was a "historical fact" and its proclamation lit up the "dark regions of the world" in which all people live. "I am referring particularly to materialism and nihilism, to a vision of the world that is unable to move beyond what is scientifically verifiable and retreats cheerlessly into a sense of emptiness," he added. "If we take away Christ and his Resurrection ... every one of [man's] hopes remains an illusion."

The remarks came at noon, shortly after Pope Benedict had celebrated the second of two Easter Masses. The night before, he presided at the Easter Vigil, the most important celebration of the Church's year, in St Peter's Basilica. "What great compassion [Jesus] must feel in our own time - on account of all the endless talk people hide behind, while in reality they are totally confused," the Pope said at the Vigil. The Church was "standing on history's waters of death and yet she has already risen" by holding Christ's hand.

Pope Benedict presided at four other Holy Week ceremonies, including a Chrism Mass at St Peter's and the Mass of the Lord's Supper at St John Lateran - both on Holy Thursday. He also led an afternoon liturgy at the Vatican commemorating the Lord's Passion and the popular torchlit Via Crucis later on Good Friday.