Pope to visit Pakistan

Pope Francis is set to visit Pakistan this year on his first-ever trip to the Islamic nation, officials said on Thursday.

The invitation by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the Head of Catholic Church was extended by Ports and Shipping Minister Kamran Michael — the only Christian minister in the current government — and Religious Affairs Minister Sardar Yusuf during a meeting in Vatican last month.

Officials said that Pope accepted the invitation extended on behalf of Sharif. “It is true that Pope has accepted the invitation and the dates of the trip will be finalised by mutual consultation,” an official of religious ministry said.

He said the Pope will meet Prime Minister Sharif and President Mamnoon Hussain.

He will also hold extensive interactions with the minority Christian community of the country, majority of them Catholic, besides visiting a Church.

Christians of Pakistan are pushing to declare Shahbaz Bhatti, killed in 2011 for demanding reform in the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, as a saint and they expect some positive gesture by the Pope during the visit.

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Pope to Catholic leaders: Don’t allow executions this year

Pope Francis on Sunday urged Catholic leaders to show “exemplary” courage by not allowing executions this year, while expressing hope that eventually the death penalty will be abolished worldwide.

Pope Francis told tourists and pilgrims in St Peter’s Square that “the commandment ‘do not kill’ holds absolute value and applies to both the innocent and the guilty.”

He added that there is “an ever more widespread opposition in public opinion to the death penalty, even only as an instrument of legitimate social defense.”

“I appeal to the conscience of those who govern so that international consensus is reached for the abolishment of the death penalty,” the Pope said. “And I propose to all those among them who are Catholic to make a courageous and exemplary gesture: may no execution sentence be carried out in this Holy Year of Mercy.”

Pope Francis is using the church’s Holy Year, which runs through November 20, to encourage efforts for more reconciliation and mercy in the world.

The Pope is building on church teaching, laid out by St John Paul II, that there’s no justification for capital punishment.

“In effect, modern societies have the possibility to efficiently repress crime without taking away definitely the possibility to redeem oneself from those who committed” the crime, Pope Francis said.

The Pope said “even criminals hold the inviolable right to life” given by God.

Pope Francis called on all Christians and all those of good will to work not only to abolish capital punishment but also to improve prison conditions.

From the start of his papacy, he has expressed concern that inmates in jails and prisons should be treated with dignity. He has often visited prisons during his trips throughout Italy and abroad, including last week while in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

While the Pope insists he doesn’t interfere in the political sphere, he has also made clear people must follow what he calls a “well—informed” conscience, and that local bishops can give guidance to Catholics, including voters, on political issues

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‘Need for unity against terror atrocities’

Pope Francis urged the world in his Christmas message on Friday to unite to end atrocities by Islamist militants that he said were causing immense suffering in many countries.

Security was tight at the Vatican as Pope Francis, marking the third Christmas since his election in 2013, read his traditional Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) address from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. Tens of thousands of people had to have their bags checked as they entered the Vatican area and then go through airport-style screening if they wanted to enter St. Peter's Square. After calling for an end to the civil wars in Syria and Libya, the Pope said:

“May the attention of the international community be unanimously directed to ending the atrocities which in those countries, as well as in Iraq, Libya, Yemen and sub-Saharan Africa, even now reap numerous victims, cause immense suffering and do not even spare the historical and cultural patrimony of entire peoples.”

He called for peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the area where Jesus was born. He asked God to bring consolation and strength to Christians who are being persecuted around the world and called for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, South Sudan and Ukraine.

The Pope’s words were echoed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his Christmas Day address, in which the leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans said Christians in West Asia faced extinction at the hands of Islamic State.

Archbishop Justin Welby said IS was “igniting a trail of fear, violence, hatred and determined oppression.” He branded the group “a Herod of today”, in a reference to the ruthless king of Judea at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ.

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