VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo criticized the emergence of nationalist political movements on Sunday, calling them unfortunate, without naming a specific country or national leader.
Leo, the first pope from the US, asked during a Mass with a crowd of tens of thousands in St. Peter’s Square that God would “open borders, break down walls (and) dispel hatred.”
“There is no room for prejudice, for ‘security’ zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, unfortunately, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms,” said the pontiff.
Leo, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost, was elected on May 8 to succeed the late Pope Francis as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Church.
Before becoming pontiff, Prevost was not shy about criticizing US President Donald Trump, sharing numerous disapproving posts about Trump and Vice President JD Vance on X in recent years.
The Vatican has not confirmed the new pope’s ownership of the X account, which had the handle @drprevost, and was deactivated after Leo’s election.
Francis, pope for 12 years, was a sharp critic of Trump. The late pope said in January that the president’s plan to deport millions of migrants in the US during his second term was a “disgrace.”
Earlier, Francis said Trump was “not Christian” because of his views on immigration.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said when asked about Trump in 2016.
Leo was celebrating a Mass for Pentecost, one of the Church’s most important holidays.
Leo, the first US pope, criticizes nationalist politics at Sunday Mass
https://arab.news/jvt4j
Leo, the first US pope, criticizes nationalist politics at Sunday Mass
UN arrives in east DR Congo town to prepare ceasefire mission
- Eastern DRC has been ravaged by three decades of conflict and faces renewed violence
KINSHASA: A team of UN peacekeepers arrived in the flashpoint eastern Democratic Republic of Congo town of Uvira to prepare the deployment of a ceasefire?monitoring mission, the force said Tuesday.
Eastern DRC has been ravaged by three decades of conflict and faces renewed violence following the 2021 resurgence of the M23 armed group, backed by Rwanda and its army.
The M23 seized large swathes of territory in the east and launched an offensive in December on Uvira, a strategic town in South Kivu province near the border with Burundi.
The assault drew condemnation from the United States, which has mediated a fragile peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda.
That agreement provided for the UN’s DRC peacekeeping mission MONUSCO to carry out a field-monitoring operation with a view to implementing a permanent ceasefire.
On Tuesday, MONUSCO and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, a grouping of surrounding countries, said in a statement they had deployed a joint exploratory and preliminary assessment mission to Uvira.
Scheduled to run until Friday, the mission focuses on assessing access, security, logistics and engagement needs, MONUSCO said.
The statement called the mission “an essential step toward deploying the future joint ceasefire?monitoring mechanism.”
In January, the M23 withdrew its last troops from Uvira, claiming it was responding to a US request. The Congolese army said it had retaken control of the town.
