"We do not allow the sacred to be exploited by what is profane. The sacred is not a prop of power and power does not prop itself up with sacredness".
Pope Francis said this in his address to the seventh Congress of the leaders of world and traditional religions in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan .
"Mindful of the horrors and errors of the past, let us join forces so that the Almighty never again becomes hostage to the will of human power ", added the Pontiff.
Francis also spoke of wars in the name of faith . "God - he said - is peace and always leads to peace, never to war . Let us therefore commit ourselves, even more, to promoting and strengthening the need for conflicts to be resolved not with the inconclusive reasons of force, with weapons and threats. , but with the only means blessed by Heaven and worthy of man: encounter, dialogue, patient negotiations , which are carried out thinking in particular of children and the younger generations. They embody the hope that peace is not the fragile result of frantic negotiations, but the fruit of a constant educational commitment, which promotes their dreams of development and the future ".
Speaking to religious leaders, the Pope then underlined that " a purification from evil is necessary for each and every one". "Let us purify ourselves, therefore, from the presumption of feeling righteous and of having nothing to learn from others - exhorted Francis - and let us free ourselves from those reductive and ruinous conceptions that offend the name of God through rigidity, extremism and fundamentalism, and profane it through the hatred, fanaticism and terrorism, even disfiguring the image of man ".
(Unioneonline / lf)