In his speech today before the Parliament, Pope Francis called on the European Union (EU) to provide assistance to migrants and deplored the deaths every year in the Mediterranean Sea.
“The Mediterranean can not become a large cemetery,” said the Pope in his first speech to the European Parliament.
In his speech Pope Francis also deplored the image of a Europe tired and aged, sick with loneliness reinforced by the economic crisis.
“This is seen especially in the elderly, often abandoned to their fate, as well as young people without benchmarks and opportunities for the future, in many poor who populate our cities and eyes of lost migrants have come here in search of a better future,” he said.
The Pope denounced the modern way of life in Western countries, a bit selfish and characterized by an unsustainable opulence and often indifferent to the surrounding world, especially the poor.
The head of the Catholic Church today also visit the headquarters of the Council of Europe, regional organization established in 1949, which represented almost all countries of the continent.
There he will be received by its Secretary General, the Norwegian Thorbjorn Jagland, and will participate in the solemn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the institution.
The short and intense journey will take less than four hours and in the afternoon the Pope will return to Rome, according to the program announced by the Holy See. (PL)