Dearly beloved young people,
this is no time to be raising our voices against others, starting arguments, or becoming involved in wanton destruction. We shouldn’t look to overcome hatred with insults and even greater hatred, meet violence with more violence, or fight terror with even greater terror. There’s a name for our response to a world at war: it’s called friendship, brotherhood, communion, family […]. Today we adults need you to show us how to live together in diversity, dialogue and sharing, seeing multiculturalism not  as a threat but as an opportunity: have the  courage to teach us that it is easier to build bridges than walls! This  is something we need to learn. Together we ask that you challenge us to follow the paths of fraternity. And build bridges. Do you know the first bridge that has to be built? It  is a bridge that we can build here and now – by reaching out and taking each other’s hand. So  take courage and do so right now!

Pope Francis’s address during the evening prayer vigil
on July  30th  2016 in Brzegi
 as part of the World Youth Day in Krakow.

Pope Francis – Jorge Mario Bergoglio, born in 1936 in Buenos  Aires, one of five children of Italian immigrants, is an Argentinian priest, the  266th Bishop of Rome, the Catholic Church’s Holy Father; he took the name Francis following his election on March 13th 2013. Previously, he was the Bishop of Buenos Aires and a cardinal. He is the first pope to be a Jesuit monk, the first pope from beyond Europe since the Syrian Pope Gregory III in the 8th  century, and the first to come from the  American continent. He is also the first pope to take the name Francis –  to  commemorate St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the  poor, who “taught us deep respect for all God’s creatures and urged us to protect the  environment, which too  often, even if sometimes our intentions are  good, we  greedily exploit to the detriment of others”.