At 9:00am this morning (EST+6), in the Atrium of the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience a representative group from the Yazidi community in Germany.
Dear brothers,
I greet you fraternally and I thank you for this meeting, through which I wish to embrace all the members of the Yazidi community, in particular those who live in Iraq and in Syria. My thoughts and prayers are in solidarity with the innocent victims of senseless and inhumane barbarism. It is unacceptable that human beings should be persecuted and killed because of their religious affiliation! Every person has a right to freely profess his religious beliefs, without constraints.
Your history, rich in spirituality and culture, has unfortunately been marked by unspeakable violations of fundamental rights that belong to every human person: abduction, slavery, torture, forced conversion, even killings. Your sanctuaries and places of worship have been destroyed. The most fortunate among you have been able to escape, but leaving everything that you had, even your most beloved and sacred possessions.
In many parts of the world there are still religious and ethnic minorities, among them there are Christians, persecuted because of their faith. The Holy See never tires of intervening in order to denounce these situations and to ask for recognition, protection and respect. At the same time, it continues to call for dialogue and reconciliation in order that every wound should be healed.
Faced with the tragedy that is being perpetuated to the detriment of your community, we can understand - as the Gospel says - that from the heart of man the most obscure forces can emerge, forces capable even of planning for the annihilation of a brother, of considering him to be an enemy, an adversary, or worse yet an individual who is deprived of his human rights. Once again, I raise my voice in favour of the rights of Yazidi people, above all the right to exist as a religious community: no one can take on the power to cancel a religious group merely because it is not part of those who are tolerated.
I am also thinking about the members of your community who are still in the hands of terrorists: I fervently hope that everything will be done to save them; as well as to trace the whereabouts of those who are missing and to give an identity and a fitting burial to those who have been killed. The international community cannot remain a silent and inert spectator before the drama that is yours. I therefore encourage the institutions and persons of good will belonging to other communities to contribute to the reconstruction of your homes and your places of worship. No more concrete efforts can be made in order to create the ideal conditions for the return of the refugees to their homes and to preserve the identity of the Yazidi community.
May God help you to build together a world where you can live in peace and fraternity.
Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the Yazidi community from Germany
Dear brothers,
I greet you fraternally and I thank you for this meeting, through which I wish to embrace all the members of the Yazidi community, in particular those who live in Iraq and in Syria. My thoughts and prayers are in solidarity with the innocent victims of senseless and inhumane barbarism. It is unacceptable that human beings should be persecuted and killed because of their religious affiliation! Every person has a right to freely profess his religious beliefs, without constraints.
Your history, rich in spirituality and culture, has unfortunately been marked by unspeakable violations of fundamental rights that belong to every human person: abduction, slavery, torture, forced conversion, even killings. Your sanctuaries and places of worship have been destroyed. The most fortunate among you have been able to escape, but leaving everything that you had, even your most beloved and sacred possessions.
In many parts of the world there are still religious and ethnic minorities, among them there are Christians, persecuted because of their faith. The Holy See never tires of intervening in order to denounce these situations and to ask for recognition, protection and respect. At the same time, it continues to call for dialogue and reconciliation in order that every wound should be healed.
Faced with the tragedy that is being perpetuated to the detriment of your community, we can understand - as the Gospel says - that from the heart of man the most obscure forces can emerge, forces capable even of planning for the annihilation of a brother, of considering him to be an enemy, an adversary, or worse yet an individual who is deprived of his human rights. Once again, I raise my voice in favour of the rights of Yazidi people, above all the right to exist as a religious community: no one can take on the power to cancel a religious group merely because it is not part of those who are tolerated.
I am also thinking about the members of your community who are still in the hands of terrorists: I fervently hope that everything will be done to save them; as well as to trace the whereabouts of those who are missing and to give an identity and a fitting burial to those who have been killed. The international community cannot remain a silent and inert spectator before the drama that is yours. I therefore encourage the institutions and persons of good will belonging to other communities to contribute to the reconstruction of your homes and your places of worship. No more concrete efforts can be made in order to create the ideal conditions for the return of the refugees to their homes and to preserve the identity of the Yazidi community.
May God help you to build together a world where you can live in peace and fraternity.
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