7 June 2018 | Meeting

JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO BARI INTRODUCTORY WORDS OF THE POPE AT THE PRAYER MEETING

“Rotonda” on the Bari seafront

[…]
Yet this region so full of light, especially in recent years, has been covered by dark
clouds of war, violence and destruction, instances of occupation and varieties of
fundamentalism, forced migration and neglect. All this has taken place amid the
complicit silence of many. The Middle East has become a land of people who leave
their own lands behind. There is also the danger that the presence of our brothers
and sisters in the faith will disappear, disfiguring the very face of the region. For a
Middle East without Christians would not be the Middle East.
[…]