Pope Francis lamented that investment losses by banks trigger more alarm in the economic crisis than the struggle of people to feed their families, as he led a huge rally on Saturday to invigorate the Catholic Church’s moral conscience, hours after he held talks at the Vatican about the economic crisis with Germany’s leader.
Some 200,000 people, from Europe, Asia and the pope’s native South America, filled St Peter’s Square and nearby streets to join Francis in hours of prayer, music and speeches aimed at encouraging Catholics to strengthen their faith and making morality play a greater role in everyday life.
“If investments, the banks plunge, this is a tragedy, if families are hurting, if they have nothing to eat, well, this is nothing, this is our crisis today,” Francis told the crowd.
Photo: Reuters
Francis said his church “opposes this mentality” and pledged that it will be dedicated to “the poor people.”
Earlier in the day, the pope met privately with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who made a brief visit to Rome, mindful of the importance of Christian voters back home ahead of an election she faces in September.
Francis, who is Argentine, has picked up on campaigns by the two previous popes, the Polish John Paul II and German Benedict XVI, to reinvigorate what the Catholic Church sees as flagging religious enthusiasm on a continent with Christian roots and a decline in morality.
“I see continuity in the missionary aspect, in becoming aware of the importance of Christianity for our Christian roots,” Merkel said.
Merkel’s Christian Democrat Party depends heavily on support from Protestant and Catholic voters in Germany, and the 45-minute chat and photograph opportunity in the Apostolic Palace could be a welcome campaign boost for a leader largely identified by Europe’s economically suffering citizens as a champion of debt reduction, including painful austerity.
For its part, the Vatican is eager for allies in its campaign to anchor European societies more solidly in their heritage of Christian roots.
Meanwhile, in Rome, tens of thousands of people joined a union-organized march on Saturday, protesting the new coalition government’s austerity measures.
The metal workers’ union FIOM said the rally was to demand “the right to jobs, training and healthcare.”
“We cannot wait any longer,” said FIOM secretary Maurizio Landini as Italy is mired in recession.
He said the country’s dire economic conditions began with the decisions of the previous governments of former Italian prime ministers Silvio Berlusconi and Mario Monti.
However, his message to new Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta was “to put jobs back at the center” of the political debate.
The unemployment rate in Italy has reached 11.5 percent, and a staggering 38.4 percent among young people aged 15 to 24.
Organizers claimed 100,000 people turned out for the march and rally in central Rome.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the