• Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
The Texas Catholic
The Texas Catholic

Dallas, Texas

Today is Tuesday, May 30, 2023
  • Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
  • Follow
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linkedin
    • Instagram
Home
Pope Francis

War brings only death, cruelty, pope says at U.S. military cemetery

Friday, November 3, 2017

Pope Francis lays roses on graves at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial in Nettuno, Italy, Nov. 2. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

NETTUNO, Italy — “No more, Lord, no more (war)” that shatters dreams and destroys lives, bringing a cold, cruel winter instead of some sought-after spring, Pope Francis said looking out at the people gathered for an outdoor Mass at a U.S. war memorial and cemetery.

“This is the fruit of war: death,” he said, as the bright Italian sun lowered in the sky on the feast of All Souls, Nov. 2.

On a day the church offers special prayers for the faithful departed with the hope of their meeting God in heaven, “here in this place, we pray in a special way for these young people,” he said, gesturing toward the rows of thousands of graves.

Christian hope can spring from great pain and suffering, he said, but it can also “make us look to heaven and say, ‘I believe in my Lord, the redeemer, but stop, Lord,” please, no more war, he said.

“With war, you lose everything,” he said.

Before the Mass, Pope Francis placed a white rose atop 10 white marble headstones; the majority of the stones were carved crosses, one was in the shape of the Jewish Star of David.

As he slowly walked alone over the green lawn and prayed among the thousands of simple grave markers, visitors recited the rosary at the World War II Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial site in Nettuno, a small coastal city south of Rome.

In previous years, the pope marked All Souls’ Day by visiting a Rome cemetery. This year, he chose to visit a U.S. military burial ground and, later in the day, the site of a Nazi massacre at the Ardeatine Caves in Rome to pray especially for all victims of war and violence.

“Wars produce nothing other than cemeteries and death,” he said after reciting the Angelus on All Saints’ Day, Nov. 1. He explained he would visit the two World War II sites the next day because humanity “seems to have not learned that lesson or doesn’t want to learn it.”

In his homily at the late afternoon Mass Nov. 2, Pope Francis spoke off-the-cuff and said people do everything to go to war, but they end up doing nothing but destroying themselves.

“This is war: the destruction of ourselves,” he said.

He spoke of the particular pain women experience in war: receiving that letter or news of the death of their husband, child or grandchild.

So often people who want to go to war “are convinced they will usher in a new world, a new springtime. But it ends up as winter — ugly, cruel, a reign of terror and death,” the pope said.

Today, the world continues to head off fiercely to war and fight battles every day, he said.

“Let us pray for the dead today, dead from war, including innocent children,” and pray to God “for the grace to weep,” he said.

Among the more than 7,800 graves at the Nettuno cemetery, there are the remains of 16 women who served in the Women’s Army Corps, Red Cross or as nurses, as well as the graves of 29 Tuskegee airmen. Those buried or missing in action had taken part in attacks by U.S. Allies along Italy’s coast during World War II.

After the Mass, the pope visited the Ardeatine Caves, now a memorial cemetery with the remains of 335 Italians, mostly civilians, brutally murdered by Nazi German occupiers in 1944.

The pope was led through the long series of tunnels and stopped to pray several minutes in silence at a bronze sculpted fence symbolizing the twisted, interlocking forms of those massacred. Walking farther along the dark corridors, he placed white roses along a long series of dark gray cement tombs built to remember the victims.

The victims included some Italian military, but also political prisoners and men rounded up in a Jewish neighborhood. They were all shot in the back of the head in retaliation for an attack on Nazi soldiers. The Nazis threw the bodies into the caves and used explosives to seal off access. After the war, a memorial was built on the site.Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, chief rabbi of Rome, sang a short prayer, and the pope prayed to God, merciful and compassionate, who hears the cries of his people and knows of their sufferings. Through the risen Christ, Christians know that God is not the god of death, “but of the living, that your covenant of faithful love is stronger than death and a guarantee of resurrection,” he said. After returning to the Vatican, the pope was to visit the grotto under St. Peter’s Basilica, where many popes are buried.

  • Tags
  • All Souls Day
  • Pope Francis
  • The Texas Catholic
  • Vatican
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest
Next article Seminary celebrates 50 years of forming future priests
Previous article Father Esposito: Finding holiness: the goal of all saints and souls

Related Posts

Promote Christian values, not divisions, on social media, Vatican says Pope Francis
Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Promote Christian values, not divisions, on social media, Vatican says

Pope on Pentecost: Synod is journey in the Spirit, not 'a parliament' Pope Francis
Sunday, May 28, 2023

Pope on Pentecost: Synod is journey in the Spirit, not 'a parliament'

Pope prays Chinese Catholics can practice faith fully, freely Pope Francis
Thursday, May 25, 2023

Pope prays Chinese Catholics can practice faith fully, freely

Texas Catholic Classics

A look at the five Dallas law enforcement officers who gave their lives while protecting citizens during a mass shooting in downtown Dallas in July 2016.

 

How a child with special needs inspired a high school volleyball team, community and a family who heeded God’s call to protect life.

 

After a young runner collapsed at a Dallas marathon, grace and providence unfolded for those involved in the valiant effort to help her.

   

In the summer of 2016, 50 students and 25 chaperones from Dallas Catholic high schools traveled to Nicaragua for a 10-day mission trip.

 

Early on a November morning, Kenndrick Mendieta bounded from the gym at Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep toward the campus’ athletic fields as clouds lifted on a fresh new day.

 

Subscribe

Get the award-winning Texas Catholic delivered to your door. Use the menu below to subscribe now.


Subscription length




 

Photo Gallery

Click here to find your favorite Texas Catholic photographs.

The Texas Catholic Newspaper

Catholic Diocese of Dallas
Michael Gresham, Editor

3725 Blackburn Street
Dallas, Texas 75219
(214) 379-2800

Our Affiliated Sites

Texas Catholic Youth

Revista Católica

Legal and Other

Contact us

Terms of service

Privacy policy

Site map

Site powered by TexasCatholicMedia

© 2013-2019 The Texas Catholic Publishing Company. All rights reserved.