August 26, 2013. (Romereports.com) Pope Francis addressed the topic of salvation
and inclusion during Sunday's Angelus,
before thousands of pilgrims at St. Peter's Square. Speaking on Sunday's Gospel
he said that Jesus does not
exclude anyone when it comes to
salvation, and letting them through God's door to Heaven.
POPE FRANCIS
“Some of you might tell me, but Father, surely I will be excluded,
because I am a great sinner, I've done bad things in my life. No! You are not
excluded! Precisely for that reason you are preferred, because Jesus prefers the sinner,
always, in order to pardon him, to love him. Jesus is waiting for you, to
embrace you, to pardon you.”
He went on to say that being a Christian is not just a
label. A true Christian, he added, must be witness to faith through prayer,
and by promoting charity and justice.
At the end of the Angelus, and for the second week in row, he
echoed his call for peace in
Syria. His appeal comes at a time when international pressure
mounts, amid claims that the Syrian government used chemical weapons.
POPE FRANCIS
“With great suffering and concern I continue to follow the
situation in Syria. The increase in violence in a war between brothers, with the proliferation of massacres and atrocities, that
we all have been able to see in the terrible images of these days, leads me
once again raise my voice that the clatter
of arms may cease. It is not
confrontation that offers hope to resolve problems, but rather the
ability to meet and dialogue.”
He expressed his condolences for all the people affected by the
war in Syria, but especially the children. Last week, the United Nations said
that over one million children
are now refugees from the conflict, while another two million have
been displaced inside Syria.
He closed off his remarks asking for people to keep the “hope of
peace” alive, and for the international community to do all it can to help find a solution to the three-year
conflict in Syria.
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