Pope, in Lisbon, urges ‘a different path’ for Europe
August 02, 2023
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CWN Editor's Note: In the first major address of his visit to Portugal, Pope Francis called upon European leaders to follow “a different path,” turning away from political and economic systems that “threaten us all,” working to solve “planetary injustice, wars, climate and migration crises.”
“I dream of a Europe, the heart of the West, which employs its immense talents to settling conflicts and lighting lamps of hope,” the Pope said, in an August 2 speech to political and diplomatic leaders in Lisbon. “The world needs Europe: the true Europe.”
The Pope decried a way of life marked by “the discarding of the elderly, walls of barbed wire, massive numbers of deaths at sea and empty cradles.” He charged that money spent by European nations on armaments leads to “a depletion of its authentic human capital: that of education, health, the welfare state.”
Pope Francis called instead for “a Europe capable of recovering its youthful heart, looking to the greatness of the whole and beyond its immediate needs; a Europe inclusive of peoples and persons, without chasing after ideologies and forms of ideological colonization.”
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