It is the task of religions to remind society of the sacredness of all human life, Pope Francis told leaders of the world’s religions in Kazakhstan on Wednesday in the opening plenary session of the Seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions at the Palace of Independence in Nur-Sultan on 14 September.
“Today we find it hard to accept the human being,” Francis told attendees of the interreligious summit. “Each day children, born and unborn, migrants and elderly persons, are cast aside. Many of our brothers and sisters die sacrificed on the altar of profit, amid clouds of the sacrilegious incense of indifference. Yet every human being is sacred.”
“Homo sacra res homini,” he said, quoting Roman philosopher Seneca. “It is above all our task, the task of the religions, to remind the world of this.”
The opening session of the interreligious summit began with a few minutes of private prayer before Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev gave his opening remarks, followed by the speech of Pope Francis and three other religious leaders: Grand Imam Ahmed El Tayeb of al-Azhar, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk from the Moscow Patriarchate, and Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yitzhak Yosef.
In his address, Pope Francis also emphasized the importance of defending religious freedom.
“Religious freedom is a basic, primary and inalienable right needing to be promoted everywhere, one that may not be restricted merely to freedom of worship,” he said. “Each person has the right to render public testimony to his or her own creed, proposing it without ever imposing it.”
“To relegate to the private sphere our most important beliefs in life,” the pope continued, “would be to deprive society of an immense treasure.”
He said the best way to enhance the distinctive features of religious, ethnic, and cultural differences is “to work for a society marked by respectful coexistence.”
We should “bring people together while respecting their diversity,” he said, and promote “their loftiest aspirations without compromising their vitality.”
The Pope will celebrate Mass and meet the Catholic bishops, priests, seminarians, consecrated men and women, and other pastoral workers of the region.
He said in the wake of the pandemic, we are called to care for others, beginning with the poor and needy, “who suffered most from the pandemic, which so forcefully brought out the injustice of global inequalities and imbalances.”
“As long as inequality and injustice continue to proliferate, there will be no end to viruses even worse than Covid: the viruses of hatred, violence and terrorism,” the Pope said.
Francis urged his fellow religious leaders to continue to promote peace. “A leap forward is required, and it needs to come from us,” said the Holy Father.