MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS: TO CARDINAL KURT KOCH ON THE OCCASION OF THE 10th GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES (BUSAN, KOREA)

[…] For this reason, I trust that the present Assembly will help to consolidate the commitment of all Christ’s followers to intensified prayer and cooperation in the service of the Gospel and the integral good of our human family. The globalized world in which we live demands of us a common witness to the God-given dignity of every human being and the effective promotion of the cultural, social and legal conditions which enable individuals and communities to grow in freedom, and which support the mission of the family as the fundamental building-block of society, ensure a sound and integral education for the young, and guarantee for all the untrammeled exercise of religious liberty. In fidelity to the Gospel, and in response to the urgent needs of the present time, we are called to reach out to those who find themselves in the existential peripheries of our societies and to show particular solidarity with the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters: the poor, the disabled, the unborn and the sick, migrants and refugees, the elderly and the young who lack employment. […]