In peace message, Pope calls for worldwide effort to end slavery

December 10, 2014

The Holy See Press Office has released the full text of Pope Francis’s message for the World Day of Peace, which takes place annually on January 1.

In the message, entitled “No Longer Slaves, but Brothers and Sisters,” the Pontiff called for an end to indifference to human trafficking.

Sin “disrupts human fraternity and constantly disfigures the beauty and nobility of our being brothers and sisters in the one human family,” giving rise to the “culture of enslavement,” the Pontiff wrote. The Gospel is a call to respond freely to the invitation to repent and be converted, and “differing origins and social status [in the early Church] did not diminish anyone’s dignity or exclude anyone from belonging to the People of God.”

“Today, as the result of a growth in our awareness, slavery, seen as a crime against humanity, has been formally abolished throughout the world,” he continued. “Yet, even though the international community has adopted numerous agreements aimed at ending slavery in all its forms, and has launched various strategies to combat this phenomenon, millions of people today – children, women and men of all ages – are deprived of freedom and are forced to live in conditions akin to slavery.”

After reviewing the various forms of contemporary slavery, the Pope called upon states, intergovernmental organizations, businesses, and civic organizations to abandon indifference and engage in a “mobilization comparable in size to that of the phenomenon itself.”

He concluded:

We know that God will ask each of us: What did you do for your brother? (cf. Gen 4:9-10). The globalization of indifference, which today burdens the lives of so many of our brothers and sisters, requires all of us to forge a new worldwide solidarity and fraternity capable of giving them new hope and helping them to advance with courage amid the problems of our time and the new horizons which they disclose and which God places in our hands.

 

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Further information:

• Messaggio del Santo Padre Francesco per la celebrazione della 48.ma Giornata Mondiale della Pace (Holy See Press Office)
• Background: papal message for January 1, the World Day of Peace (CWN, 12/31/13)