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(Vatican Radio) From the window of the Archbishop’s residence on Friday evening, Pope Francis recalled this day as one of pain. “Friday, he said, is the day when we remember the death of Jesus and with the young people we prayed the Way of the Cross: the suffering and death of Jesus for all of us.”

So many people, the Pope noted, “so many people are suffering: the sick; those who are at war; the homeless; the hungry; those who are doubtful in life, who do not feel happiness,”…
 

In the afternoon, he continued, “I went to the children’s hospital. There too, Jesus suffers in so many sick children: I always ask myself that question, "Why do children suffer?". It's a mystery. There are no answers to these questions ...”

Recalling his morning at Auschwitz-Birkenau, he said, “how much pain, how much cruelty! Is it possible that we men, created in the likeness of God, we are able to do these things?

Then he added, “cruelty did not end in Auschwitz, Birkenau: even today. Today! Today we torture people; many prisoners are tortured immediately, to get them to talk ... It 's terrible!”  “Today there is this cruelty. We say, "Yes, there we saw the cruelty more than 70 years ago. How they died shot or hanged or with gas .. ". But today in many places of the world where there is war, it's the same!

In this reality, the Holy Father said, “Jesus came to take us on his shoulders. He asks us to pray. We pray for all the Jesus’ who today are in the world: the hungry; the thirsty; the doubters; the sick, who are on their own; those who feel the weight of so many doubts and guilt. Who suffer so much ... Let us pray for all the sick children, innocent, who carry the Cross for children. And we pray for so many men and women who today are tortured in many countries of the world; for prisoners who are all piled up there, as if they were animals.”

“Everyone here is a sinner”, the Pope concluded, “we all have the weight of our sins.” “But He loves us: He loves us!” Let's all pray together for these people who are suffering in the world today so many bad things, many bad things. And when there are tears, the child seeks its mother. Even us sinners we are children, we look for our mother and pray to Our Lady all together, each in his own language.”

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Philadelphia, Pa., Jul 28, 2016 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court let stand July 26 a ruling that prosecutors in a Philadelphia priest’s trial used prejudicial evidence related to clergy sex abuse.

Philadelphia’s district attorney must now decide whether to re-try Monsignor William J. Lynn.

The priest was not accused of sexually abusing children. However, he was convicted on one felony count of child endangerment for failing to protect children from an abusive priest, and was sentenced to three to six years in prison.

Msgr. Lynn, now 65 years old, had served as the Philadelphia archdiocese’s Secretary for Clergy from 1992 to 2004. As such, he was responsible for investigating priests accused of abuse.

He was the first Catholic official convicted for a supervisory role over priests accused of abusing children.

That trial could be revisited, or the priest could be released for good.

In December 2015 the Superior Court had ordered a new trial for Msgr. Lynn. It agreed with his lawyers that the prosecutors had wrongly tainted the judgement of the jury by using historical evidence of the Church’s handling of sex abuse, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Some of the two dozen case histories dated to the 1940s.

In the priest’s 2012 trial, prosecutors used the history in an effort to show the priest was part of a dominant culture in the archdiocese. The judge at the trial allowed it as background on the grounds that jurors could understand the context and the culture in which Msgr. Lynn was operating.

The priest’s lawyers said the evidence was prejudicial and inflammatory and drove the jury toward a guilty verdict.

The charge against Msgr. Lynn stemmed from his response to the case of Edward Avery, a now-laicized priest serving a jail sentence for abusing an altar boy during the 1990s. Prosecutors said Msgr. Lynn had reassigned Avery to live near a church school, despite having substantiated a claim of abuse against the priest. After reassignment, Avery sexually assaulted a 10-year-old boy in 1999.

Philadelphia district attorney Seth Williams had appealed the December 2015 decision that ordered a new trial for Msgr. Lynn.

The district attorney must decide whether to hold another trial for the priest, who has served half his sentence.

He will be paroled Oct. 16. Pennsylvania inmates are typically eligible for parole after they serve their minimum sentence. His attorney has sought bail of $250,000.

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New York City, N.Y., Jul 29, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Mike Piazza, the newest inductee of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, has given a shout-out to Pope Benedict XVI and his mother Veronica.

“She gave me the gift of my Catholic faith, which has had a profound impact on my career and has given me patience, compassion and hope,” Piazza said in his induction speech Sunday.

“Pope Benedict XVI said, ‘One who has hope, lives differently.’ Mom, you raised five boys, and you were always there for me.”

Piazza, 47, played catcher for the New York Mets and other teams. He hit 427 home runs in his professional career. He began his professional baseball career with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1992 and played with the Mets from 1998-2005. He was a 12-time All Star player and a 10-time Silver Slugger Award winner. He retired in 2007.

He is only the second Hall of Fame player to be inducted as a Met.

Piazza had attended 7:30 Mass at Cooperstown’s Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church, the New York Post’s sports columnist Kevin Kiernan reported.

Afterward, he asked for a special blessing from the priest, Father John Rosson.

“Yes, it was quite humbling,” Fr. Rosson said on the church website. “Mike was very humble…I was tongue tied when he asked for a blessing and I did not realize that I had a live ‘mike’ on.”

The baseball star signed autographs and took pictures with parishioners. The church is only a 10-minute walk from the hall of fame.

About 50,000 people attended the induction ceremony, including many of Piazza’s past teammates and 48 returning Hall of Famers. Piazza was inducted into the hall of fame alongside Ken Griffey, Jr., a past star for the Cincinnati Reds and Seattle Mariners.  

Piazza also thanked his father, Vince, who was present at the ceremony.

“My father’s faith in me, often greater than my own, is the single most important factor of me being inducted into this Hall of Fame. Thank you, Dad.”

Piazza noted that his father had had a major stroke several years before.

“We made it, Dad. The race is over. Now it’s time to smell the roses,” he said.

The Mets star also thanked the team’s fans.

“How can I put into words my love and appreciation for New York Mets fans. Looking back into this crowd of blue and orange brings me back to the greatest time of my life,” he said. “The thing I miss most is making you cheer.”

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Krakow, Poland, Jul 29, 2016 / 10:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The day after a priest was brutally murdered in France, a panel at World Youth Day in Poland discussed the importance of religious freedom worldwide.

The panel left an Iraqi archbishop deeply impressed at how Catholic youth from around the world \are not only aware of the persecution of Christians – particularly in the Middle East – at the hands of ISIS, but are anxious to demonstrate their solidarity.

Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq, was greeted with one standing ovation after another as he spoke to thousands of young people at World Youth Day (WYD) about the targeting of Christians in his country.

World Youth Day is a weeklong gathering of young Catholics from around the world that will conclude on Sunday with a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis.

The panel discussion took place Tuesday at Tauron Arena Kraków, the site for English-speaking pilgrims to World Youth Day. The arena has been dubbed "Mercy Center" for the week, and is being sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and a number of partners.

Pope Francis will visit the arena before he departs for Rome on Sunday.

Christians now suffering in the Middle East “will be so moved to learn of this tremendous support, and they will be encouraged in hope knowing that so many youth around the world care about them, and care that they continue to be allowed to practice their faith in the place where Jesus himself lived, in the place where his language is still spoken,” said Archbishop Warda of Erbil, Iraq, immediately after the panel discussion.

In addition to Archbishop Warda, the panel included Archbishop of Baltimore William Lori, who has served as the chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty; author and commentator George Weigel; and Vice President of the NGO Roads of Success, Jacqueline Isaac. An American of Egyptian descent, Isaac has spent more than a decade advocating for the rights of minorities and women across the Middle East, and recently testified before the U.K. Parliament and U.S. Congress.

The discussion had a particular poignancy as it was held in the wake of the murder of Father Jacques Hamel in France. Despite the pain that follows such an act, panelists called for a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation, especially with those who are carrying out violence and intimidation against Christians.

“We are to be the carriers of [God's] light and his love," said Isaac. "And I promise you that it will radiate and break through the darkness.”

Archbishop Lori observed that Christians would rather use the gift of freedom to evangelize or serve the poor instead of fighting legal battles over the right to practice the faith. He also noted that the implications of the struggle are usually far removed from the every-day lives of the young.

He asked: “What should our response be in the face of the secular view of religious liberty, where liberty is considered the ‘right’ to discriminate?” We can't go along with that point of view. Without religious freedom, life becomes a hard place, where no one and nothing stands.”

Weigel emphasized that "religious freedom is not freedom of worship alone.”

He pointed out that "religious conviction, not only leads us to worship, it leads us to educate, leads us to serve, leads us to heal, it leads us to religious communities that have a right to be themselves.”

Mercy Centre has been organized by the Knights of Columbus – the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization with nearly two million members – together with the Sisters of Life and the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., and other groups.

The Knights of Columbus, with 4,000 members in Poland, is also celebrating its 10th anniversary in that country this year.

For more information and a complete listing of World Youth Day programming, visit wydenglishsite.org or follow #WYDMercyCentre #kofc on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

 

This press release was provided to CNA by the Knights of Columbus.

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Krakow, Poland, Jul 29, 2016 / 11:13 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis sent a video message to Cuban youth unable to attend World Youth Day on Friday, encouraging them to have hope and to bring the Gospel to life.

“Young Cubans: open yourselves to great things! Do not be afraid,” the Pope said July 29 in his message to the some 1,400 youth who are gathered in Havana for a celebration that coincides with World Youth Day.

“Dream that with you, the world can be different! Dream that Cuba, with you, can be different, and better every day. Do not give up! In this endeavour it is important that you open your heart and mind to the hope that Jesus gives.”

The Church in Cuba has organized a gathering for those who could not travel to Krakow for the encounter with Pope Francis, adopting the same themes and providing catecheses, the Way of the Cross, and opportunities to pass through a Holy Door and gain the plenary indulgence offered for the Jubilee of Mercy.

“With great hope I join with you in this moment, in which you are in harmony with the universal Church whose young heart is in Krakow,” the Pope said. “I trust that these days will be, for all, a special occasion to foster the culture of encounter, the culture of respect, the culture of understanding and of mutual forgiveness.”

Pope Francis exhorted them to “never forget that this hope is suffered; hope knows how to suffer to carry out a project, but likewise do not forget that it gives life, it is fruitful. And with this, hope will not be fruitless; rather, it will give life to others, it will create a homeland, a Church, it will do great things.”

He said, “Hope is instrumental in building ‘social friendship’, even though people may think differently. It is not necessary for us all to think in the same way.”

“We must all join together in ‘social friendship’, even with those who think in a different way. But we all have something in common: the wish to dream, and this love for the homeland. The important thing, regardless of whether we are the same or different, is to build this ‘social friendship’ with all; to build bridges, to work together. Build bridges!”

The Pope encouraged Cuba's youth to “live the experience of listening carefully to the Gospel and then bringing it alive in your own lives, in the lives of your family and friends. … When you pray the Via Crucis , remember that we cannot love God if we do not love our brothers. When you pass through the Holy Door, let yourself be infused with this love.”

By doing this “you will learn always to look upon others with mercy, closeness and tenderness, especially those who suffer and those who are in need of help,” he said.

“Stand before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; because in him, and only in him, will you find the strength to follow the most beautiful and constructive plan of our lives; because love is constructive, love destroys not even the enemy, love always builds up.”

He recalled St. John Paul II's exhortation to “be not afraid”, telling them to “remember that the Master’s most beautiful wish is that you will be afraid of nothing.”

“Boys and girls, do not be afraid of anything, be free of the bonds of this world and proclaim to all, to the elderly, the sorrowful, that the Church weeps with them, and that Jesus is able to give them new life, to revive them.”

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Krakow, Poland, Jul 29, 2016 / 11:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Way of the Cross shows Christ's embrace of everyone who hungers, suffers, and dies – and the imperative for Christians to do works of mercy. Those were Pope Francis’ words for young people at World Youth Day in Krakow on Friday.

“Jesus himself chose to identify with these our brothers and sisters enduring pain and anguish by agreeing to tread the ‘way of sorrows’ that led to Calvary,” the Pope said July 29. “By dying on the cross, he surrendered himself into to the hands of the Father, taking upon himself and in himself, with self-sacrificing love, the physical, moral and spiritual wounds of all humanity.”

“By embracing the wood of the cross, Jesus embraced the nakedness, the hunger and thirst, the loneliness, pain and death of men and women of all times,” he continued.

The Pope spoke to thousands of young people gathered in a field in Krakow’s Blonia Park.

He reflected on the question: “Where is God?”

“Where is God, if evil is present in our world, if there are men and women who are hungry and thirsty, homeless, exiles and refugees?” he asked. “Where is God, when innocent persons die as a result of violence, terrorism and war?”

He asked where God is in the face of cruel and deadly disease, in the exploitation and suffering of children, and in “the anguish of those who doubt and are troubled in spirit.”

“These are questions that humanly speaking have no answer,” Pope Francis said.

“We can only look to Jesus and ask him. And Jesus’ answer is this: ‘God is in them.’ Jesus is in them; he suffers in them and deeply identifies with each of them. He is so closely united to them as to form with them, as it were, ‘one body’.”

The Pope told young people of the importance of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, saying they open us to God’s mercy and help us appreciate that “without mercy we can do nothing.”

These are the only answers to evil, he said.

“In the face of evil, suffering and sin, the only response possible for a disciple of Jesus is the gift of self, even of one’s own life, in imitation of Christ; it is the attitude of service. Unless those who call themselves Christians live to serve, their lives serve no good purpose. By their lives, they deny Jesus Christ,” the Pope declared.

The Pope stressed the importance of both the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

“We are called to serve the crucified Jesus in all those who are marginalized, to touch his sacred flesh in those who are disadvantaged, in those who hunger and thirst, in the naked and imprisoned, the sick and unemployed, in those who are persecuted, refugees and migrants,” he said. “There we find our God; there we touch the Lord.”

He said the credibility of Christians is at stake in how they welcome both those who suffer physically and those who suffer spiritually.

“The Way of the Cross is the way of fidelity in following Jesus to the end, in the often dramatic situations of everyday life,” he added. “It is a way that fears no lack of success, ostracism or solitude, because it fills ours hearts with the fullness of Jesus.”

Christ brings this path even to societies that are divided, unjust, and corrupt.

“The Way of the Cross is not a sadomasochistic habit. The Way of the Cross alone defeats sin, evil and death, for it leads to the radiant light of Christ’s resurrection and opens the horizons of a new and fuller life. It is the way of hope, the way of the future,” the Pope said. “Those who take up this way with generosity and faith give hope and a future to humanity.”

“And I would like you to be sowers of hope,” he added.

“Dear young people, on that Good Friday many disciples went back crestfallen to their homes,” he concluded. “Others chose to go out to the country to forget the cross.”

“I ask you – and respond, each of you, silently in your hearts – how do you want to go back this evening to your own homes, to the places where you are staying? Your tents? How do you want to go back this evening to be alone with your thoughts? The world is watching us. Each of you has to answer the challenge that this question sets before you.”

He added special mention of those attending World Youth Day from war-torn Syria: “Tonight Jesus, and we with him, embrace with particular love our brothers and sisters from Syria who have fled from the war. We greet them, and we welcome them with fraternal affection and friendship.”

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Rome, Italy, Jul 29, 2016 / 12:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis sat quietly in one of Auschwitz's most ominous prison cells, praying in what had been the inhumane living space of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest martyred during the Holocaust.

St. Maximilian was one of over a million people estimated to have died in the Auschwitz concentration camps, where the Pope paid a visit on July 29 during his trip to Poland. This August marks the 75th anniversary of his death.

Although the majority of those incarcerated in the death camps were Jews, targeted by the Nazi regime for extermination, many of the victims were Catholics, including priests and religious sisters. St. Maximilian, a Franciscan friar, died in 1941 after asking to take the place of another prisoner who was destined for execution. The following year, Edith Stein, the German Jewish philosopher turned Catholic Carmelite nun, was also killed at Auschwitz, most likely in the gas chambers upon her arrival.  

They are joined by countless other Catholics who lost their lives during the Holocaust, many of them for trying to rescue Jews from the Nazis.

The sacrifices of these Catholics, both living and dead, were quietly remembered throughout  Pope Francis' pilgrimage to the infamous Auschwitz death camp. He prayed at length in the prison cell where the St. Maximilian had been kept during his incarceration. He also greeted a group known as the “Righteous among the Nations” – non-Jewish men and women who had risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazi extermination.

According according to several biographies, the young St. Maximilian had been personally called to martyrdom by the Virgin Mary. In his account, Mary came to him in an apparition holding two crowns, indicating for him to choose: one was white, representing purity, the other red, for martyrdom. He chose both.  

Following the German invasion of Poland, St. Maximilian was arrested twice, first in 1939 and again in 1941, at which point he was sent to Auschwitz. That August, 10 prisoners were sentenced to death by starvation in punishment for another inmate's escape. After hearing one of the men lament leaving behind his wife and children, Fr. Kolbe volunteered to die in his place.

Survivors of the camp testified that the starving prisoners could be heard praying and singing hymns, led by the priest. After two weeks, on the night before the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the camp officials decided to hasten Fr. Kolbe's death, injecting him with carbolic acid. He was canonized 40 years later, on Oct. 10, 1982.

Edith Stein, known formally as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, is another martyr of the Auschwitz death camp. She was born into a Jewish family in Breslau, Poland, but abandoned her faith as a teenager. A brilliant academic, Stein advanced in a career in philosophy, and studied under the likes of phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Influenced by the writings of St. Teresa of Ávila, she converted to Catholicism in 1922, and entered the disclaced Carmelite monastery 1933.

In 1942, Sr. Teresa Benedicta was arrested along with her sister Rosa, and the members of her religious community, in retaliation against a protest letter by the Dutch Bishops which decried the Nazi treatment of Jews. It is believed that she perished in the Auschwitz gas chambers upon her arrival Aug. 9, 1942, along with her sister and the rest of the community.

Pope Francis' pilgrimage to Auschwitz also paid homage to the sacrifice of the Ulma family, even though they were not killed in the concentration camp.  

The visit was conducted almost entirely in silence, except for the recitation of Psalm 130 – “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord” – delivered by Fr. Stanislaw Ruszala, a Polish priest from the village of Markowa, where the young Catholic family had been slaughtered by the Nazis for harboring Jews.  

Jozef Ulma was murdered during the Nazi occupation, alongside his wife Wiktoria and seven children, including their unborn child. The Nazis also slaughtered the eight members of the Jewish Goldman, Gruenfeld and Didner families being harbored by the Ulmas.

Pope Francis is not the first pontiff to visit the Auschwitz camps. The camps were visited by Polish-born St. John Paul II in 1979, and later by Benedict XVI in 2006.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Elizabeth Evans

By Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans

PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- At a time when the official party platform advocates for removing current legislative restrictions on obtaining abortions, pro-life Democrats came to Philadelphia with a counter message: You can't win big without us.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has called for repealing the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding for most abortions and continues to be included in many federal appropriations bills for abortions. Her stance has been endorsed in the party platform, which also calls for eliminating the Helms Amendment, which prohibits U.S. foreign aid from being used to fund abortion-related activities.

But Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, notes that since 2008, when President Barack Obama launched his first term, the party has lost 11 governorships, 30 state chambers, 69 house seats, 13 seats in the U.S. Senate and 912 seats in state legislatures.

While the pro-life Democrats agree with 99 percent of their party's views on issues like paid maternity leave and a living wage, Day said the Democrats have become a party of the Northeast and the West.

"We've got to open up the big tent," she said in an interview with Catholic News Service. "Voters want to come back to the Democratic Party, but the party platform and the extreme positions we have been taking prevent them from doing so."

Day has been buoyed by a recent Dallas gathering of approximately 500 women who identify as pro-life feminists. "We think we are doing this alone but we have this whole network of women out there," she said. "A lot of them (are) doing this work on the ground to provide the support we are talking about. They know what women want and what we women need. We're the fourth wave of feminism, and we are pro-life."

As the Democratic National Convention played out at Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center, she said she had some revealing, encouraging conversations while sitting at the Democrats for Life table in a bustling hallway at the city's convention center.

"So many of those who think they are pro-choice are actually pro-life," she told CNS July 27.

Christian Matozzo, a Temple University student who describes himself as a "dedicated pro-life Democrat from Philadelphia," said he had some positive and some "tougher" conversations at the convention. "I enjoy the dialogue. It's been great to promote the message that we do exist in great numbers, and that we are not being represented by the party."

The stumbling block for many, he said, is that many equate the pro-life cause with a lack of compassion and concern for helping women facing unplanned pregnancies.

"I vehemently disagree with that," Matozzo said. "I want to provide for women as much as they do, but I don't feel that you need to abort an unborn child to do so."

At a reception honoring Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Catholic, who is the only Democratic governor in the South, for his support of the pro-life cause, Day underlined that idea from the podium: "We choose the mother. We choose the child. We choose both."

Matt Tuman, an organization volunteer who has helped update the Democrats for Life website and aided with research projects, is hopeful that the supporters of keeping abortion legal and the pro-life advocates in his party can find common ground and reduce the number of abortions by advocating for paid maternity leave, a 20-week ban on abortions and Medicaid expansion to help the economically disadvantaged.

He agrees with Day that the party's hardening stance on abortion has contributed to its loss of electoral clout.

"When we don't have pro-life Democrats in the House, we can't hold the House" he said. "There are a lot of pro-life areas out there in the deep South, where pro-life Democrats have a better opportunity to win (those seats.)"

Day and honoree Edwards, who said that his Catholic Christian faith informs his views, both argued that pro-life beliefs aren't limited to abortion.

"There is a difference between being anti-abortion and pro-life," said Edwards in accepting the Governor Casey Whole Life Leadership Award. Rejecting the label of "liberal" or "conservative," Edwards suggested that people listen to what he has to say, and make up their own minds.

He noted that with the party's embrace of such an outspoken supporter of legal abortion like Emily's List president Stephanie Schriock -- who addressed the convention July 27 -- the prospects for pro-life Democrats could dim. Schriock's organization focuses on electing "pro-choice" Democratic women to office.

"It's going to be increasingly difficult to navigate these waters if the party doesn't moderate" Edwards said.

"I almost started to cry when he spoke," said Day. "We've needed an outspoken leader like this.'

She characterizes Louisiana as her new favorite state "ground zero" in progress made in reclaiming ground lost to supporters of legal abortion.

Louisiana state Rep. Katrina Jackson, who introduced Edwards as a friend and colleague, said that while many of her colleagues acknowledge that a fetus is a human being, they emphasize what will happen to children after they are born.

"The majority of those I meet aren't as concerned about promoting abortion as they are concerned about how the child will live out its life. But everything is connected," Jackson said.

While the role of faith in shaping her decisions is "overarching," she said, she has found that other Democrats have many different reasons for being pro-life.

Many of those at the meeting where Edwards was honored represented younger voters, including a Life Matters group from Pittsburgh. "According to statistics, ours is the most pro-life generation," said Aimee Miller, a young adult with that group, "but also the most secular generation."

In conversations they had with attendees at the convention, her group's members found most people were genuinely interested and respectful, she told CatholicPhilly.com, the news website of the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

As the DNC neared its close July 28, Day reflected on what she had gleaned from days of interacting with delegates and visitors.

"We're right. Our position is right, and it's given me so much encouragement," she said. "The platform was discouraging and I felt the party went too far, but being here, and finding that more people agree with me than not has given me more encouragement to keep fighting the fight. People are cheering for us and saying, keep it up.

"We're bringing the Democratic Party back to its roots to protect all living beings."

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Lou Baldwin contributed to this story.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Junno Arocho Esteves

KRAKOW, Poland (CNS) -- By embracing the hunger, thirst and loneliness of others, young people can touch Jesus' cross and experience the light of the resurrection, Pope Francis said.

It was Jesus who chose to identify with people who suffer pain and anguish, especially those fleeing violence and persecution, by "agreeing to tread the way of sorrows that led to Calvary," the pope told young men and women July 29 participating in the Way of the Cross at World Youth Day in Krakow.

The reflection on Jesus' passion and death capped an emotional day that included a visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp and a stop at children's hospital in Krakow before his arrival at Blonia Park. Police stood shoulder-to-shoulder at some crossing points into the park and would not let people pass, sending them to other entry points on the grounds. Thousands of people still were streaming to the service from the crowded streets 30 minutes into the service.

Dancers, acrobats, painters and other artists performed interpretations of each key moment leading up to Christ's crucifixion, death and burial.

Each significant event of Jesus' crucifixion was linked to a corporal or spiritual work of mercy. A group of mimes dressed and painted completely in white acted out Simon of Cyrene helping Jesus carry his cross, while wall climbers seemed to stumble as they climbed and formed a cross on the wall, representing Jesus falling for the first time.

The first station -- Jesus sentenced to death -- related to sheltering the homeless and refugees who share in that same suffering through humanity's indifference. About two dozen young people from the Sant'Egidio Community from Italy, Argentina, Ukraine and Pakistan carried a wooden cross to the first station. They were accompanied by two formerly homeless Poles and a couple who fled the war in Syria.

"In the last few years, you have been sentenced to death in the persons of 30,000 refugees. Sentenced -- by whom? Who will agree with this sentence?" a young woman prayed at the first station.

Following the Stations of the Cross, Pope Francis, who had watched from the stage, began his address by welcoming the Syrian refugees "with fraternal affection and friendship."

"By embracing the wood of the cross, Jesus embraced the nakedness, the hunger and thirst, the loneliness, pain and death of men and women of all times. Tonight, Jesus -- and we with him -- embrace with particular love our brothers and sisters from Syria who have fled from the war," he said.

The pope said that suffering of refugees, the sick, and exploited children could often lead to questioning God's presence. While those questions "humanely speaking have no answer," Christ does have an answer.

"Jesus' answer is this: 'God is in them.' Jesus is in them; he suffers in them and deeply identifies with each of them," he said.

The pope emphasized the importance of both corporal and spiritual works of mercy, which can bring young people to touch Christ's "sacred flesh" and determine whether they're Christians.

"In welcoming the outcast who suffer physically and welcoming sinners who suffer spiritually, our credibility as Christians is at stake. Not (just) in ideas," he said.

"Humanity today needs men and women, and especially young people like yourselves, who do not wish to live their lives 'halfway,' young people ready to spend their lives freely in service to those of their brothers and sisters who are poorest and most vulnerable, in imitation of Christ, who gave himself completely for our salvation," he said.

Pope Francis called on all young people to be at the forefront of serving others, a path of "personal commitment and self-sacrifice" that "is the Way of the Cross."

"The Way of the Cross is not sadomasochistic," he said. "The Way of the Cross is the only thing that conquers sin, evil and death, for it leads to the radiant light of Christ's resurrection and opens the horizons of a new and fuller life."

Not far from the stage, a group of about 200 Iraqis waved flags of their homeland. Raega Teresa, a member of Ascension Parish in Baghdad, told Catholic News Service the effort of getting so many Iraqis -- including some from Kurdistan -- to Poland was worthwhile.

"Meeting the pope will strengthen our faith in God," said Teresa, a member of the Catholic Youth Committee of Iraq. "We can take this faith to Iraq and to other people there and strengthen all and pray for all."

She said the group was inspired by Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil, who also traveled to Krakow. "He gives us strength for our faith in spite of all the bad circumstances," she said.

In a neighboring section, a contingent from Portugal wore stark white T-shirts with the message "Syria: Peace is possible" emblazoned on the front in English and on the back in Portuguese. The T-shirts bore the logo of Caritas Internationalis, the Catholic Church's international relief and development agency.

"We wanted to send a message to the pope that we listen to him in seeking peace in Syria," said Rute Tavares, 17, of Lisbon, one of the about 15 people seated on yellow plastic sheeting to protect them from the wet ground.

"We want him to know that young people can make a difference," she said. "We want to be together with youth all around the world, but especially those who are suffering."

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Contributing to this story was Dennis Sadowski.

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Follow on Twitter: @arochoju, @DennisSadowski.

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