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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is calling on political and religious leaders, on the heads of international institutions, on business and media executives and on all men and women of goodwill to become instruments of reconciliation and adopt nonviolence as a style of politics for peace.

The Pope’s appeal comes in the fiftieth papal Message for the World Day of Peace, marked on December 1st . The Message was released in the Vatican on Monday.

In his long and multi-facted message the Pope remarks on the fact that we find ourselves “engaged in a horrifying world war fought peacemeal”, and that  “violence is not the cure for our broken world.”

Please find below the full text of Pope Francis’s message for the World Day of Peace:   

"Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace"

1.    At the beginning of this New Year, I offer heartfelt wishes of peace to the world’s peoples and nations, to heads of state and government, and to religious, civic and community leaders.  I wish peace to every man, woman and child, and I pray that the image and likeness of God in each person will enable us to acknowledge one another as sacred gifts endowed with immense dignity.  Especially in situations of conflict, let us respect this, our “deepest dignity”,  and make active nonviolence our way of life. 

    This is the fiftieth Message for the World Day of Peace.  In the first, Blessed Pope Paul VI addressed all peoples, not simply Catholics, with utter clarity.  “Peace is the only true direction of human progress – and not the tensions caused by ambitious nationalisms, nor conquests by violence, nor repressions which serve as mainstay for a false civil order”.  He warned of “the danger of believing that international controversies cannot be resolved by the ways of reason, that is, by negotiations founded on law, justice, and equity, but only by means of deterrent and murderous forces.”  Instead, citing the encyclical Pacem in Terris of his predecessor Saint John XXIII, he extolled “the sense and love of peace founded upon truth, justice, freedom and love”.    In the intervening fifty years, these words have lost none of their significance or urgency.

    On this occasion, I would like to reflect on nonviolence as a style of politics for peace.  I ask God to help all of us to cultivate nonviolence in our most personal thoughts and values.  May charity and nonviolence govern how we treat each other as individuals, within society and in international life.  When victims of violence are able to resist the temptation to retaliate, they become the most credible promotors of nonviolent peacemaking.  In the most local and ordinary situations and in the international order, may nonviolence become the hallmark of our decisions, our relationships and our actions, and indeed of political life in all its forms.

A broken world

2.    While the last century knew the devastation of two deadly World Wars, the threat of nuclear war and a great number of other conflicts, today, sadly, we find ourselves engaged in a horrifying world war fought piecemeal.  It is not easy to know if our world is presently more or less violent than in the past, or to know whether modern means of communications and greater mobility have made us more aware of violence, or, on the other hand, increasingly inured to it. 
    
In any case, we know that this “piecemeal” violence, of different kinds and levels, causes great suffering: wars in different countries and continents; terrorism, organized crime and unforeseen acts of violence; the abuses suffered by migrants and victims of human trafficking; and the devastation of the environment.  Where does this lead?  Can violence achieve any goal of lasting value?  Or does it merely lead to retaliation and a cycle of deadly conflicts that benefit only a few “warlords”?
    
Violence is not the cure for our broken world.  Countering violence with violence leads at best to forced migrations and enormous suffering, because vast amounts of resources are diverted to military ends and away from the everyday needs of young people, families experiencing hardship, the elderly, the infirm and the great majority of people in our world.  At worst, it can lead to the death, physical and spiritual, of many people, if not of all. 

The Good News

3.    Jesus himself lived in violent times.  Yet he taught that the true battlefield, where violence and peace meet, is the human heart: for “it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come” (Mk 7:21).  But Christ’s message in this regard offers a radically positive approach.  He unfailingly preached God’s unconditional love, which welcomes and forgives.  He taught his disciples to love their enemies (cf. Mt 5:44) and to turn the other cheek (cf. Mt 5:39).  When he stopped her accusers from stoning the woman caught in adultery (cf. Jn 8:1-11), and when, on the night before he died, he told Peter to put away his sword (cf. Mt 26:52), Jesus marked out the path of nonviolence.  He walked that path to the very end, to the cross, whereby he became our peace and put an end to hostility (cf. Eph 2:14-16).  Whoever accepts the Good News of Jesus is able to acknowledge the violence within and be healed by God’s mercy, becoming in turn an instrument of reconciliation.  In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi: “As you announce peace with your mouth, make sure that you have greater peace in your hearts”.  
    
To be true followers of Jesus today also includes embracing his teaching about nonviolence.  As my predecessor Benedict XVI observed, that teaching “is realistic because it takes into account that in the world there is too much violence, too much injustice, and therefore that this situation cannot be overcome except by countering it with more love, with more goodness.  This ‘more’ comes from God”.   He went on to stress that: “For Christians, nonviolence is not merely tactical behaviour but a person’s way of being, the attitude of one who is so convinced of God’s love and power that he or she is not afraid to tackle evil with the weapons of love and truth alone.  Love of one’s enemy constitutes the nucleus of the ‘Christian revolution’”.   The Gospel command to love your enemies (cf. Lk 6:27) “is rightly considered the magna carta of Christian nonviolence. It does not consist in succumbing to evil…, but in responding to evil with good (cf. Rom 12:17-21), and thereby breaking the chain of injustice”. 

More powerful than violence 

4.    Nonviolence is sometimes taken to mean surrender, lack of involvement and passivity, but this is not the case.  When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she clearly stated her own message of active nonviolence: “We in our family don’t need bombs and guns, to destroy to bring peace – just get together, love one another…  And we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world”.   For the force of arms is deceptive.  “While weapons traffickers do their work, there are poor peacemakers who give their lives to help one person, then another and another and another”; for such peacemakers, Mother Teresa is “a symbol, an icon of our times”.   Last September, I had the great joy of proclaiming her a Saint.  I praised her readiness to make herself available for everyone “through her welcome and defence of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded…  She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity; she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crimes – the crimes! – of poverty they created”.   In response, her mission – and she stands for thousands, even millions of persons – was to reach out to the suffering, with generous dedication, touching and binding up every wounded body, healing every broken life.
    
The decisive and consistent practice of nonviolence has produced impressive results.  The achievements of Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan in the liberation of India, and of Dr Martin Luther King Jr in combating racial discrimination will never be forgotten.  Women in particular are often leaders of nonviolence, as for example, was Leymah Gbowee and the thousands of Liberian women, who organized pray-ins and nonviolent protest that resulted in high-level peace talks to end the second civil war in Liberia.
    
Nor can we forget the eventful decade that ended with the fall of Communist regimes in Europe.  The Christian communities made their own contribution by their insistent prayer and courageous action.  Particularly influential were the ministry and teaching of Saint John Paul II.  Reflecting on the events of 1989 in his 1991 Encyclical Centesimus Annus, my predecessor highlighted the fact that momentous change in the lives of people, nations and states had come about “by means of peaceful protest, using only the weapons of truth and justice”.   This peaceful political transition was made possible in part “by the non-violent commitment of people who, while always refusing to yield to the force of power, succeeded time after time in finding effective ways of bearing witness to the truth”.  Pope John Paul went on to say: “May people learn to fight for justice without violence, renouncing class struggle in their internal disputes and war in international ones”.  
    
The Church has been involved in nonviolent peacebuilding strategies in many countries, engaging even the most violent parties in efforts to build a just and lasting peace.
    
Such efforts on behalf of the victims of injustice and violence are not the legacy of the Catholic Church alone, but are typical of many religious traditions, for which “compassion and nonviolence are essential elements pointing to the way of life”.   I emphatically reaffirm that “no religion is terrorist”.   Violence profanes the name of God.   Let us never tire of repeating: “The name of God cannot be used to justify violence.  Peace alone is holy.  Peace alone is holy, not war!” 

The domestic roots of a politics of nonviolence

5.    If violence has its source in the human heart, then it is fundamental that nonviolence be practised before all else within families.  This is part of that joy of love which I described last March in my Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, in the wake of two years of reflection by the Church on marriage and the family.  The family is the indispensable crucible in which spouses, parents and children, brothers and sisters, learn to communicate and to show generous concern for one another, and in which frictions and even conflicts have to be resolved not by force but by dialogue, respect, concern for the good of the other, mercy and forgiveness.   From within families, the joy of love spills out into the world and radiates to the whole of society.   An ethics of fraternity and peaceful coexistence between individuals and among peoples cannot be based on the logic of fear, violence and closed-mindedness, but on responsibility, respect and sincere dialogue.  Hence, I plead for disarmament and for the prohibition and abolition of nuclear weapons: nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutual assured destruction are incapable of grounding such an ethics.   I plead with equal urgency for an end to domestic violence and to the abuse of women and children.
    
The Jubilee of Mercy that ended in November encouraged each one of us to look deeply within and to allow God’s mercy to enter there.  The Jubilee taught us to realize how many and diverse are the individuals and social groups treated with indifference and subjected to injustice and violence.  They too are part of our “family”; they too are our brothers and sisters.  The politics of nonviolence have to begin in the home and then spread to the entire human family.  “Saint Therese of Lisieux invites us to practise the little way of love, not to miss out on a kind word, a smile or any small gesture which sows peace and friendship.  An integral ecology is also made up of simple daily gestures that break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness”. 

My invitation

6.    Peacebuilding through active nonviolence is the natural and necessary complement to the Church’s continuing efforts to limit the use of force by the application of moral norms; she does so by her participation in the work of international institutions and through the competent contribution made by so many Christians to the drafting of legislation at all levels.  Jesus himself offers a “manual” for this strategy of peacemaking in the Sermon on the Mount.  The eight Beatitudes (cf. Mt 5:3-10) provide a portrait of the person we could describe as blessed, good and authentic.  Blessed are the meek, Jesus tells us, the merciful and the peacemakers, those who are pure in heart, and those who hunger and thirst for justice.
    
This is also a programme and a challenge for political and religious leaders, the heads of international institutions, and business and media executives: to apply the Beatitudes in the exercise of their respective responsibilities.  It is a challenge to build up society, communities and businesses by acting as peacemakers.  It is to show mercy by refusing to discard people, harm the environment, or seek to win at any cost.  To do so requires “the willingness to face conflict head on, to resolve it and to make it a link in the chain of a new process”.   To act in this way means to choose solidarity as a way of making history and building friendship in society.  Active nonviolence is a way of showing that unity is truly more powerful and more fruitful than conflict.  Everything in the world is inter-connected.   Certainly differences can cause frictions.  But let us face them constructively and non-violently, so that “tensions and oppositions can achieve a diversified and life-giving unity,” preserving “what is valid and useful on both sides”. 
    
I pledge the assistance of the Church in every effort to build peace through active and creative nonviolence.  On 1 January 2017, the new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development will begin its work.  It will help the Church to promote in an ever more effective way “the inestimable goods of justice, peace, and the care of creation” and concern for “migrants, those in need, the sick, the excluded and marginalized, the imprisoned and the unemployed, as well as victims of armed conflict, natural disasters, and all forms of slavery and torture”.   Every such response, however modest, helps to build a world free of violence, the first step towards justice and peace.

In conclusion

8.    As is traditional, I am signing this Message on 8 December, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Mary is the Queen of Peace.  At the birth of her Son, the angels gave glory to God and wished peace on earth to men and women of good will (cf. Luke 2:14).  Let us pray for her guidance. 
    
“All of us want peace.  Many people build it day by day through small gestures and acts; many of them are suffering, yet patiently persevere in their efforts to be peacemakers”.   In 2017, may we dedicate ourselves prayerfully and actively to banishing violence from our hearts, words and deeds, and to becoming nonviolent people and to build nonviolent communities that care for our common home. “Nothing is impossible if we turn to God in prayer. Everyone can be an artisan of peace”.  

From the Vatican, 8 December 2016
Francis

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis this morning called His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, to express his condolences following the  recent attack on the Coptic Cathedral of St. Mark in Abassiya, Cairo.

According to a statement from the Holy See Press Office, the Pope expressed his closeness to the Patriarch and the Coptic community so hard hit, especially to the women and children who represent the highest number among the victims.

During the call Patriarch Tawadros II recalled the expression of Pope Francis, pronounced during their meeting at the Vatican, namely the '' blood ecumenism ". For his part, Pope Francis said that "We are united in the blood of our martyrs."

The Holy Father has promised to pray for the Coptic community during the Mass being celebrated today on feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The Patriarch also thanked Pope Francis for his closeness at this time, and he asked him to pray for them and for peace in Egypt, promising to pass on his condolences to the entire Coptic community.

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(Vatican Radio) Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, Permanent Observer of the Holy See  to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva has delivered a statement at the Fifth Review Conference of the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW)

Please find the English statement below

12 December 2016

Madam Chairperson,

One of the stark realities of history is that most of the sophisticated and rapid scientific and technological developments have been driven by military logic or application. Rather than being at the service of the greater common good, they have often led to the production of deadly new weapons, used to advance narrow national interests.

While the means and methods of warfare have changed, the suffering and fear they cause have always been the red line of conflicts. Today, the scale of humanitarian deprivation we witness is appalling: in 2015, on average, every minute 24 people were forced to flee their homes due to war and violence (UNHCR, Global Trend on Forced Displacement, 2016). An even more tragic reality is that the public conscience seems to have become less sensitive towards the victims, in what Pope Francis called a “globalization of indifference”.

Madam Chairperson,

Confronted with so many victims of conflicts, there is no room for weak decisions and compromises during this Fifth Review Conference; such is the case obviously for ethical reasons, but also, in the first place, because of the legal obligations undertaken by the States parties to the CCW. In this context, I would like to address three main issues in particular:

1) Incendiary weapons. Since the adoption of the 35-year-old Protocol III, the repeated use of incendiary weapons calls into question the adequacy of this instrument in reducing human suffering. Incendiary weapons can inflict cruel and lasting injuries without distinction between civilians and combatants. They can start uncontrollable blazes that often destroy civilian properties and vital infrastructure.

What steps can we take to remedy this inadequacy? The answer is clear: we must commence work in 2017 in the CCW to provide an honest technical and legal review of the provisions contained in Protocol III. In this regard, the Holy See believes that, besides the fact that the use of any weapon must comply with the rules of International Humanitarian Law, it is the use of incendiary weapons together with the magnitude of their effects on people that should be regulated or prohibited, regardless of the purpose for which the weapons are primarily designed. 2

2) Explosive weapons in populated areas. The tragic experience of conflicts all over the world shows that the use of explosive weapons with wide effects in populated areas has a dramatic and long-term humanitarian impact. Explosive weapons destroy housing and vital infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, water and power supply systems, leaving far too many people trapped in a cycle of violence. In addition, these weapons often leave explosive remnants of war, which can kill and injure civilians for decades after hostilities have ended.

Madam Chairperson,

Some statistics better illustrate this tragic reality: in 2015, when explosive weapons were used in highly populated areas as many as 92% of the people killed or injured were civilians, with children and women being the most affected (OCHA, 2016). With two thirds of the global population projected to be living in urban areas by 2030 (UN Habitat report, 2016), these figures are solid enough to question the “collateral damage” caveat. The number of civilian victims should raise serious moral and legal questions: the CCW has an obligation to face these new realities and to make bold decisions aiming to safeguard civilian infrastructures, which are indispensable to living with dignity.

3) Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). The Holy See has already presented to the CCW Informal group a position paper and a working paper to express its views and grave concerns about the increasing trend in the dehumanization of warfare. Taking humans “out of the loop” poses significant legal, ethical and humanitarian questions, primarily because of the absence of meaningful human involvement in selecting and attacking targets and the decision over death and life, a heavy responsibility for a human being that involves moral reasoning for which the human person is uniquely suited and accountable.

In this regard, the Holy See appreciates the work recently conducted in the CCW and urges that the recommendations by the Group of Experts be endorsed, leading to the establishment of a Group of Governmental Experts which is the least that the CCW can do. Given the urgency of the matter, it will be crucial to allocate sufficient time and resources to examine this issue and to enter into honest negotiations. In the case of LAWS, the Holy See reiterates its previous and repeated position that prevention and prohibition are the best option.

Madam Chairperson,

International security and peace are best achieved through the promotion of a culture of dialogue and cooperation, not through an arms race. Civilians always bear the highest price of war while the weapons industries profit from it. Until this unfortunate logic is changed, it is incumbent upon us to reduce at least the human suffering caused by armed conflicts. But we, as States parties, must strive for more than that. Our objective should be a world where peace and non-violence are the norm. The CCW can be part of this noble aim if it makes right and timely decisions during this Fifth Review Conference.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

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Vatican City, Dec 12, 2016 / 04:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When it comes to the many conflicts splintering different parts of the world, Pope Francis the Christian response must be one of nonviolence, which isn’t passive, but active and has roots in a strong family life.

“To be true followers of Jesus today also includes embracing his teaching about nonviolence,” the Pope said in his message for the 50th World Day of Peace, published Dec. 12.

Citing the havoc wrought by the wars and conflicts that marked the last century, Francis again pointed to the fact that today “we find ourselves engaged in a horrifying world war fought piecemeal.”

Just this weekend around 70 people were killed in several terrorist attacks, including a blast outside a Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Cairo and two bombings near a soccer stadium in Istanbul.

While it’s not easy to tell whether or not the world is presently more violent that in the past, what is obvious is that the “piecemeal violence” seen on various levels in the modern era leads to great suffering through war, terrorism, organized crime, human trafficking and environmental degradation.

Answering violence with violence leads “at best” to forced migration and the misuse of economic resources, and “at worst” to death, whether physical or spiritual, he said, stressing that “violence is not the cure for our broken world.”

Jesus himself embraced a nonviolent response to the conflicts of his time, he said, pointing to his frequent insistence to love one’s enemies and to turn the other check, as well as his actions in stopping the accusers of the woman caught in adultery from stoning her and in telling Peter to put away his sword the night before he died.

“The true battlefield, where violence and peace meet, is the human heart,” he said, quoting the Gospel passage in Mark that reads: “it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”

However, Jesus’ response is to walk the path of nonviolence up to the point of the cross, “whereby he became our peace and put an end to hostility.”

Quoting his predecessor retired pontiff Benedict XVI, Francis said the teaching of nonviolence is a realistic response to the world’s conflicts “because it takes into account that in the world there is too much violence, too much injustice, and therefore that this situation cannot be overcome except by countering it with more love, with more goodness.”

“For Christians, nonviolence is not merely tactical behavior but a person’s way of being, the attitude of one who is so convinced of God’s love and power that he or she is not afraid to tackle evil with the weapons of love and truth alone.”

Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies “is rightly considered the magna carta of Christian nonviolence,” he said, explaining that it doesn’t mean succumbing to evil, but rather responding to evil with good.

Pope Francis’ message for the 50th World Day of Peace was signed, as usual, Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and published Dec. 12, It holds the theme “Nonviolence: a Style of Politics for Peace.”

Instituted by Bl. Pope Paul VI in 1968, the World Day of Peace is celebrated each year on the first day of January. The Pope gives a special message for the occasion, which is sent to all foreign ministers around the world, and which also indicates the Holy See’s diplomatic tone during the coming year.

So far Pope Francis’ messages have focused on themes close to his heart, such as fraternity, an end to slavery, including forced labor and human trafficking, as well as overcoming indifference on both an individual and a political level.

His messages for the event have consistently included bold pastoral and political advice for both ecclesial and international leaders, including his push for the abolition of the death penalty and amnesty for prisoners convicted of political offenses.

This year his message includes a plug for disarmament, prohibition and abolition of nuclear weapons, since “nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutual assured destruction are incapable” of adopting a true ethics of nonviolence.

Francis also issued an appeal for an end to domestic violence and the abuse of women and children.

He mentioned several figures who for him are prime examples of nonviolence, including the recently canonized St. Teresa of Calcutta, Mahatma Ghandi, Pashtun independence activist Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Martin Luther King Jr.

Women are often leaders of nonviolence, he said, pointing to Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and the thousands of women in the country who through organized prayer events and nonviolent protests have succeeded in prompting high-level peace talks to end the second civil war in Liberia.

Nonviolence is at times mistakenly understood to be synonymous with surrender, a lack of involvement or with passivity, however, he stressed that “this is not the case.”

St. Teresa of Calcutta, when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, showed that this is not the case when she said that we don’t need “bombs and guns” to bring peace, but rather to “get together (and) love one another.”

Francis praised St. Teresa’s ready availability toward everyone “through her welcome and defense of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded.”

“She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity; she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crimes – the crimes! – of poverty they created,” he said, noting that her mission was to reach out to the suffering and “bind up every wounded body, healing every broken life.”

If the strategy of nonviolence is to grow, it must begin in the family, the Pope said, explaining that the family “is the indispensable crucible” in which all members of the family “learn to communicate and to show generous concern for one another, and in which frictions and even conflicts have to be resolved not by force but by dialogue, respect, concern for the good of the other, mercy and forgiveness.”

“From within families, the joy of love spills out into the world and radiates to the whole of society.

The love lived within the family radiates to the whole of society, he said, adding that “an ethics of fraternity and peaceful coexistence between individuals and among peoples cannot be based on the logic of fear, violence and closed-mindedness, but on responsibility, respect and sincere dialogue.”

Pope Francis closed his message by pointing the Beatitudes as a “portrait” and program for both political and religious leaders and heads of international institutions, businesses and media execs to follow in exercising their responsibility.

To act as a peacemaker in society and business is often a challenge, he said, because it involves showing mercy and refusing to discard people, to harm the environment or to win “at any cost.”

“Active nonviolence is a way of showing that unity is truly more powerful and more fruitful than conflict,” he said, noting that while differences will inevitably cause frictions, we can face them “constructively and non-violently, so that tensions and oppositions can achieve a diversified and life-giving unity, preserving what is valid and useful on both sides.”

He concluded by praying that in 2017, people would continue to build peace daily through “small gestures and acts.”

“May we dedicate ourselves prayerfully and actively to banishing violence from our hearts, words and deeds, and to becoming nonviolent people and to build nonviolent communities that care for our common home,” he said.

“Nothing is impossible if we turn to God in prayer. Everyone can be an artisan of peace.”

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Vatican City, Dec 12, 2016 / 05:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The day after an explosion at the Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Cairo killed 25 people, mostly women and children, Pope Francis called the head of the Church to offer prayer, and to say they are united the blood of their martyrs.

According to a Dec. 12 communique from the Vatican, Francis called His Holiness Pope Tawadros II earlier that morning to express his condolences and to assure of his closeness to the Patriarch and the entire Coptic community, “so hardly hit.”

On his part, Patriarch Tawadros II reminded Francis of the phrase “ecumenism of blood” he often uses to describe the global persecution of Christians, and which he also used during his 2013 meeting with the patriarch at the Vatican.

Pope Francis told the patriarch that “we are united in the blood of our martyrs,” and promised to pray for the community during his evening Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Tawadros II then thanked Pope Francis for his closeness and asked that he pray for the Coptic Church and for peace in Egypt, promising to send the Pope’s condolences to the entire Coptic community.

Francis’ phone call came the day after a Dec. 11 explosion at a chapel attached to St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens more.

The blast occurred around 10a.m. local time during a Liturgy at the seat of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is an Oriental Orthodox Church, meaning it rejected the 451 Council of Chalcedon, and its followers were historically considered monophysites – those who believe Christ has only one nature – by Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox.

Egypt’s Christians, mostly Copts, make up 10 percent of Egypt’s 83 million-strong population, while the remaining 90 percent is Muslim.

Christians in Egypt have long faced attacks from Islamist extremists, particularly since Egypt's military ousted president Mohammed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2013.

In February, four Coptic teenagers were found guilty of insulting Islam and sentenced to five years imprisonment, and two persons were killed in clashes outside St. Mark's in April 2013.

In Libya, the Islamic State killed 21 Coptic Orthodox from Egypt in February 2015. In 2011, a bombing on a Coptic church in Alexandria killed 23.

Following his Sunday Angelus address, which took place just hours after the attack, Pope Francis prayed for the victims of the attack, and stated that “there is only one answer” to such violence: “faith in God  and unity in human and civil values.”

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