‘Enslavement culture’afflicts world

In his annual message to the diplomatic corps at the Vatican on Monday, Pope Francis said that, just as the Christmas stories show the “hardened heart of humanity”, so do contemporary events across the globe, writes James Roberts.

He compared Herod’s slaughter of the innocents to the recent slaughter “with unspeakable brutality” of 132 schoolchildren in Pakistan. A widespread “culture of rejection” was most recently illustrated in the “tragic slayings” which took place in Paris last week in which 17 people were murdered by Islamist terrorists, he said, though he made no reference to Islam. Other people “are no longer regarded as beings of equal dignity, as brothers or sisters sharing a common humanity”, he said, quoting from his 2015 World Peace Day message.

He referred to a “culture of enslavement” associated with “never-ending conflicts … like a true world war fought piecemeal” and appealed for an end to hostilities in Ukraine, for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and linked the spread of “fundamentalist terrorism” in Syria and Iraq to a “throwaway culture being applied to God”.

“Religious fundamentalism, even before it eliminates human beings by perpetrating horrendous killings, eliminates God, turning him into a mere ideological pretext,” he said.

Francis appealed to all leaders, particularly “those of the Muslim community”, to condemn all interpretations of religion that attempt to justify acts of violence.

Without naming the Islamist group Boko Haram, he linked the continuing atrocities in Nigeria to the “abominable trade” of trafficking. Other African countries suffering conflict included Libya, Sudan, South Sudan, and DRC; associated with these wars was “the horrendous crime of rape”.

He praised health-care workers, and Religious caring for ebola victims, and said the plight of migrants and asylum seekers was foreshadowed in the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt.