POPE MONITOR

HORRORS OF HOLOCAUST MUST NEVER BE FORGOTTEN, SAYS POPE

POPE TELLS CATHOLIC MEDIA: CHECK FACTS BUT ALWAYS RESPECT PEOPLE INFLAMED KNEE LIGAMENT IS CURBING POPE’S MOBILITY

The cruelty of the Holocaust must never be forgotten, or repeated, Pope Francis said on the eve of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. The day, celebrated on January 27, falls on the anniversary of the liberation of the AuschwitzBirkenau extermination camp complex in 1945.

At his weekly general audience at the Vatican on January 26, Pope Francis said, “It is necessary to remember the extermination of millions of Jews and people of different nationalities and religious faiths.

“This unspeakable cruelty must never be repeated. I appeal to everyone, especially educators and families, to foster in the new generations an awareness of the horror of this black page of history. It must not be forgotten, so that we can build a future where human dignity is no longer trampled underfoot,” the pope said.

The same day, the pope met with Belarusborn Lidia Maksymowicz, 81, who spent 13 months at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where she and other children were subjected to Josef Mengele’s medical experiments.

It was her second meeting with Pope Francis who, at an outdoor general audience on May 26, 2021, had spoken with her, kissed her prisoner number 70072, tattooed on her left arm, and embraced her. That meeting inspired her to write her autobiography, La bambina che non sapeva odiare. La mia testimonianza (‘The

Meeting with members of the International Catholic Media Consortium on January 28, the pope called on journalists, especially Catholic media professionals, to remain faithful to the truth by always verifying facts while adopting a respectful attitude toward those who produce and consume fake news.

The consortium set up the ‘Catholic FactChecking’ website in early 2021. Pope Francis lauded the organisation’s goal of seeking to unmask “fake news and partial or misleading information” about COVID-19 vaccines and ethical questions related to them.

The group includes a scientific committee that draws upon the work of experts in epidemiology, theology, and bioethics. The Pope noted that people are increasingly influenced by mass media and that reporters must therefore employ a rigorous method.

He lamented the “infodemic” plaguing the world alongside the pandemic, calling it “a distortion of reality based on fear, which in our global society leads to an explosion of commentary on falsified if not invented news.

“To be properly informed, to be helped to understand situations based on scientific data and not fake news, is a human right. Correct information must be ensured above all to those who are less equipped, to the weakest and to those who are most vulnerable.

“Fake news has to be refuted, but individual persons must always be respected, for they believe it often without full awareness or responsibility,” he added.

This approach calls for Christian reporters to be “evangelical in style, a builder of bridges, a promoter of peace, also and above all, in search for truth.” child who did not know how to hate. My testimony’) which was recently released in Italian. At their recent meeting, she gave the pope a copy of the book, which also contains a preface written by Pope Francis.

Even though she was only three years old when she and her young mother were taken to the extermination camp, she has explained that those memories are vivid and correspond with evidence found by researchers years later.

“One must not forget that more than 200,000 children died just at AuschwitzBirkenau,” she said.

Pope Francis acknowledged that he is experiencing mobility problems due to an inflamed ligament in his right knee, which makes walking and going up and down stairs painful.

He told his weekly general audience on January 26 that he had been informed that the inflammation only afflicts older people – “I don’t know why it happened to me,” the 85-year-old pope quipped, drawing applause from the crowd.

Pope Francis has long suffered from sciatica nerve pain resulting in a pronounced limp, and he cited the new knee pain in explaining why he would not go down the steps of the Vatican audience hall to greet the pilgrims in the crowd. Instead, a handful of guests were brought up to the stage.

The pope enjoys generally good health, though he had a section of his large intestine removed last July. He also had a part of one lung removed when he was a young man after a respiratory infection.