KRAKOW, Poland – Pope Francis on Saturday offered up a prayer to protect the world from a “devastating wave of terrorism,” in the middle of presiding over the world’s largest gathering of Catholic youth assembled this week in Poland.
“We come to You today to ask You to keep in peace the world and its people, to keep far away from it the devastating wave of terrorism, to restore friendship and instill in the hearts of your creatures the gift of trust and of readiness to forgive,” the pope said in his prayer.
The pope offered the prayer during a brief visit to a church in Krakow prior to leading a prayer vigil for more than a million young pilgrims. The pontiff dropped into the church to pray before the relics of two Polish Franciscans killed in Peru by the Marxist guerilla movement “Sendero Luminoso.”
In the context of the past month, however, the scope of the pope’s prayer seemed much broader, embracing several recent terrorist incidents including the brutal murder of a French priest by Islam State-inspired assassins just as the Krakow World Youth Day opened.
“O Jesus, Prince of Peace, we pray to You for the ones who have been wounded in these acts of inhuman violence: children and young people, old people and innocent people accidentally involved in evil,” the pope prayed.
“Heal their bodies and hearts; console them with Your strength and, at the same time, take away any hatred and a desire for revenge,” he said.
Directly addressing those who commit terrorist acts, the pope added to his prayer, “Touch the hearts of terrorists so that they may recognize the evil of their actions and may turn to the way of peace and goodness, of respect for the life and for the dignity of every human being, regardless of religion, origin, wealth or poverty.”
He finished by imploring God, “We ask for the gift of peace and of the elimination from our midst of the sore of terrorism.”
