Catholic World News News Feature

Pope mourns Kristallnacht victims, condemns present-day atrocities in Congo November 10, 2008

Pope Benedict XVI recalled the painful memory of Kristallnacht at his midday on November 9, as the world marked the 70th anniversary of the mob violence that inaugurated the Nazi campaign against European Jews.

"Even today I suffer" from the recollection, the Pope said, referring to the that night when Nazis smashed and looted the homes, offices, stores, and synagogues of German Jews. That night of violence, the Holy Father said, marked the onest of "that violent and systematic persecution of the German Jews which concluded with the Shoah." He asked for payers for the victims of Nazi genocide, and prayers that such an atrocity could never happen again. He asked the faithful "to join me in expressing profound solidarity with the Jewish world."

Turning to the present, the Pope called attention to "bloody armed clashes and systematic atrocities" in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "Destruction, sacking and violence of all kinds have forced further tens of thousands of people to abandon what little they had to survive," he reported, adding that the number of refugees in the region now approximates 1.5 million.

The Pope offered his prayers for the victims of the African violence, for the aid workers struggling to help the survivors, and for the peacemakers doing their best "to collaborate in restoring peace to that long-martyred land, while respecting legality and, above all, the dignity of each individual."