Speaking to 50,000 pilgrims during his weekly Angelus prayer at St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis called on the crowd to pray for victims of violence in Iraq and Syria. \t <\/p>\n
POPE FRANCIS <\/strong> A concerned Pope Francis said it is necessary to support persecuted Christians in the Middle East with persistent messages of encouragement. \t <\/p>\n POPE FRANCIS <\/strong> Pope Francis also called for an end to the violence in Venezuela. Anti-government protests have raged for days. Tension has increased since the death of a 14-year-old boy during the demonstrations. The Pope said he prays for him and that violence will give way to productive dialogue. \t <\/p>\n POPE FRANCIS <\/strong> It was the second Sunday of Lent, the day the Church celebrates the Transfiguration of Jesus. That was a moment of glory before Jesus had to pass through Calvary. The Pope recommended that in moments of difficulty, Christians should remember this Gospel story. With it, Jesus wanted to send a message of hope to his disciples. \t \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 2, 2015. ;During his weekly Angelus prayer, the Pope also prayed for a teenager slain during Venezuelan protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":52462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"http:\/\/youtu.be\/_TFsZY9RieU","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/","international_url":"http:\/\/romereports.com.edgesuite.net\/news\/bangelus0103int.mov","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n'Let us pray for those brothers and sisters in Syria and Iraq who suffer because of their faith ... We pray in silence.' <\/em>\t <\/p>\n
\n'We don't forget them, moreover, we are close to them. We pray constantly for the earliest possible end to the intolerable brutality that victimizes them.' <\/em>\t <\/p>\n
\n'I ask everyone to reject violence and respect the dignity of each person and the sacrality of human life. I invite the country to return to non-violent methods.' <\/em>\t <\/p>\n