The Pope bets on negotiation

VATICAN CITY (EFE).— Pope Francis urged “dialogue and negotiation, and refraining from violent reactions” to achieve peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and other places where there are wars, in an appeal after praying the Sunday Angelus.

“Let us continue to pray that paths of peace may open in the Middle East, in Palestine, in Israel, as well as in tormented Ukraine, in Burma, in all the places where there is war,” said Francis, looking out of the window of the Apostolic Palace.

The pontiff also urged “commitment to dialogue and negotiation, and refraining from violent reactions.”

The Vatican has also been using its diplomacy in recent days to prevent an escalation in the Middle East, and the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, held a telephone conversation last Monday with the new Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, in which he expressed concern about the situation and the need to prevent the conflict from spreading.

Francis has already made several calls to avoid an escalation of the conflict and for an immediate ceasefire on all fronts.

The Pope also stressed in one of his appeals that “attacks, even targeted ones, and murders can never be a solution and do not help to follow the path of justice and peace and generate more hatred and revenge.”

Tensions between the Islamic Republic and Israel soared on July 31, when an attack killed former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was visiting Tehran.

On another topic, the Pope reaffirmed his condemnation of the death penalty and said “it does not provide justice and is a poison for society,” in the preface to the recently published book by lawyer Dale Recinella, who provides spiritual support to those condemned to death in the United States.

In the book “A Christian on Death Row,” the Pope reiterates that “the death penalty is in no way the solution to violence.”

BookThe death penalty

In the book “A Christian on Death Row,” the Pope condemns the death penalty.

It is not a solution

“The death penalty is by no means the solution to violence, it can affect innocent people.”

They feed revenge

“Capital executions, far from providing justice, feed a feeling of revenge that becomes a dangerous poison for the body of our civil societies,” Francis notes in the book “A Christian on Death Row.”

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