After praying the midday Angelus this August 10 with those in St. Peter's Square, Pope Leo XVI urged the faithful to continue praying for an end to war.
In regard to global conflicts, he noted both a positive development, and a negative one.
The positive: Armenia and Azerbaijan. And the negative: the catastrophic and ongoing situation in Haiti.
Here's what he said:
Let us continue to pray for an end to wars. The 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has reawakened throughout the world the necessary rejection of war as a means of resolving conflicts. May those who make decisions always keep in mind their responsibility for the consequences of their choices on the lives of people. May they not ignore the needs of the weakest and the universal desire for peace.
In this regard, I congratulate Armenia and Azerbaijan on the signing of the Joint Declaration of Peace. I hope that this event will contribute to a stable and lasting peace in the South Caucasus.
On the other hand, the situation of the people of Haiti is increasingly desperate. Reports of murders, violence of all kinds, human trafficking, forced exile, and kidnappings continue to pour in. I make a heartfelt appeal to all those responsible for the release of the hostages, and I ask for the concrete support of the international community in creating the social and institutional conditions that will allow the Haitian people to live in peace.
South Caucasus
The declaration between Armenia and Azerbaijan was signed August 8 in Washington by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, under the auspices of US President Donald Trump.
However, it has sparked strong opposition among part of the Armenian population. Opponents of the agreement are concerned about the loss of sovereignty resulting from the construction, under US supervision, of a 40-kilometer corridor through southern Armenia near the border with Iran to connect Azerbaijan with its western province of Nakhchivan.
The commitment of the United States, which is taking advantage of Russia's decline in its former sphere of influence, is mainly linked to Trump's desire to isolate Iran, which until now has maintained direct relations with these two Caucasian countries with which it shares a border.
Haiti
In Haiti, an Irish missionary has been missing for a week.
As noted by Vatican News: Gena Heraty, who runs the St. Helene Orphanage near Haiti's Capital Port Au Prince, was kidnapped last Sunday along with a three- year-old child and seven of her staff.
Lawlessness and gang violence plague Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. The United Nations says that more than eighty percent of the Capital Port Au Prince is under the stranglehold control of the street gangs and organized crime.
Kidnapping is an everyday, commonplace crime in Haiti, often aimed at gaining large sums of cash for guns and other equipment.
