Pope: “Roma are brothers, we must welcome them”

General audience of the Pope entirely dedicated to the recent apostolic journey to Budapest and Slovakia. “I would sum it up like this: it was a pilgrimage of prayer, a pilgrimage to the roots, a pilgrimage of hope,” said Bergoglio. The Pontiff then recalled the stages of the journey: “The first was in Budapest, for the concluding Holy Mass of the International Eucharistic Congress. Great was the participation in this celebration. The holy people of God, on the day of the Lord, became gathered before the mystery of the Eucharist, from which he is continually generated and regenerated. He was embraced by the Cross that stood above the altar, to show the same direction indicated by the Eucharist, that is, the way of humble and disinterested love, of love generous and respectful towards all, of the faith that purifies from worldliness and leads to essentiality. This faith takes us away from worldliness which is a worm and ruins us from within “. Then Francis spoke of the celebration in Šaštín, Slovakia, at the Shrine of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows, where “a great population of children has come for the feast of the Mother, which is also the national religious holiday”. A journey that, the Pontiff recalled, was also a “pilgrimage to the roots. Meeting the brother Bishops, both in Budapest and in Bratislava, I was able to touch the grateful memory of these vivid roots of faith and Christian life. in the shining example of witnesses to the faith. I perceived the strength of these roots in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in the Byzantine rite, in Prešov, on the feast of the Holy Cross. In the songs I felt the heart of the holy faithful people vibrate, forged by so many sufferings suffer for the faith “. In this regard, the Pope recalled:” several times I have insisted on the fact that these roots are always alive, full of the lifeblood that is the Holy Spirit, and that they must be kept as such: not as artifacts museums, not ideologized and exploited for prestige and power interests, to consolidate a closed identity. No. This would mean betraying and sterilizing them “. A pilgrimage also “of hope – Francis remarked – Hope in seeing so many young couples and so many children, in the face of the demographic winter”. Bergoglio then paid homage to the Missionaries of Charity of the Bethlehem Center in Bratislava, who welcomes people homeless: “I am thinking of the Roma community and of all those who commit themselves to them for a journey of fraternity and inclusion. It was moving to share the celebration of the Roma community: a simple celebration that smacked of the Gospel. The Roma are brothers we must welcome them”. Then the warning to unity: “Dear brothers and sisters, this hope is realized, it becomes concrete only if expressed with another word: together. In Budapest and Slovakia we found ourselves together with the different rites of the Catholic Church, together with the brothers of other Christian Confessions, together with the Jewish brothers, together with the believers of other religions, together with the weakest. This is the way, because the future will be one of hope if it is together not alone “.