"Let us 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 7th 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.
"As long as inequalities and injustices continue to rage, viruses worse than Covid will not be able to cease: those of hatred, violence, terrorism", he added.
"Yes, because it is precisely poverty that allows the spread of epidemics and other great evils that thrive on the lands of hardship and inequality. The greatest risk factor of our times remains poverty".
The Pope stressed that "a purification from evil is necessary for each and every one".
"Let us purify ourselves, therefore, from the presumption of feeling righteous and having nothing to learn from others - exhorted Francis -; 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 ".
"We never condone violence," he added.
"God 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 with particular attention to 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 ".
On his second day in Kazakhstan, Pope Francis arrived this morning by car from the Apostolic Nunciature, where he is staying, at the Independence Palace, in the central square of the capital Nur-Sultan, where the 7th Congress of Leaders of World Religions opens and traditional, to which he was invited by the President of the Republic Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
This morning, after the silent prayer of religious leaders in the Conference Hall - where the Pope entered in a wheelchair, immediately greeted by Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar -, the opening of the Congress is scheduled. and the plenary session, with the speech of President Tokayev and those of the Pontiff and other religious leaders.
Then the group photo of the participants and the Pope's private meetings with some religious leaders.
Numerous and high-level interventions scheduled today in the plenary session of the 7th Congress.
After the silent prayer of religious leaders, the plenary session begins on the theme of the role of religious leaders in the spiritual and social development of human civilization in the post-pandemic period.
The moderator is Maule Ashimbayev, president of the Senate of the Republic of Kazakhstan and head of the Congress Secretariat.
After the welcome address of the President of the Republic Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the first speech was that of Pope Francis.
Followed by those of the Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, great imam of Al-Azhar, of Metropolitan Antonij di Volo Kolamsk, head of the Department of External Ecclesial Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, of Yitzhak Yosef, chief Sephardic rabbi of Israel, and the video message of Antonio Guterres,
United Nations Secretary-General.
Following the plenary session, Patriarch Theophilus III of Jerusalem will speak, a video message from the secretary general of the Muslim World League Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, then the UN under-secretary general Miguel Angel Moratinos, the official representative of the guardian of the two sacred Mosques and King of Saudi Arabia Saleh bin Abdul-Aziz Al ash-Sheikh, the president of the Chinese Toista Association Li Guanfu, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel David Lau, the High Commissioner of National Minorities of the OSCE Kairat Abdrakhmanov, the president of the Muslim Council of the Caucasus Allashukur Pashadaze, the President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Duarte Pacheco, the President of the Council of
Islamic ideology of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
The plenary session will then continue in the afternoon.
At the end of the morning, the Pope will meet some of the religious leaders present privately.
The Congress will close tomorrow with thematic sessions (one also on the role of women), with the reading of the Final Declaration and the concluding speech by Pope Francis, Sheikh Al-Tayyeb, Metropolitan Antonij of Volokolamsk, President of the Kazakh Republic Tokayev and of the President of the Senate Ashimbayev.