Pope: Vocation of military and police is to defend life, peace, justice

Cindy Wooden

Catholic News Services

VATICAN CITY — Thanking members of the military and the police for their service, Pope Francis asked them to be on guard against seeing other people as enemies and instead dedicate their lives to defending life, peace and justice.

“Be vigilant lest you be poisoned by propaganda that instills hatred (and) divides the world into friends to be defended and foes to fight,” the pope wrote in his homily for the Mass Feb. 9 for the Jubilee of the Armed Services, Police and Security Personnel.

The Vatican said some 30,000 active and retired members of the military and police from 100 countries — including U.S. military and members of the New York Police Department—registered as pilgrims for the jubilee celebration.

Pope Francis, who has been suffering from what the Vatican said was bronchitis, presided over the liturgy in St. Peter’s Square with a weak and hoarse voice. U.S.-born Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, was the main celebrant at the altar.

The pope read the first paragraph of his prepared homily, ad-libbing a bit about remembering how God is always close by, but then asked his master of liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, to continue reading the text because he was having “difficulty breathing.”

In the text, the pope asked the military and police to “be courageous witnesses of the love of God our Father, who wants us all to be brothers and sisters” and to be “artisans of a new era of peace, justice and fraternity.”

“I would encourage you never to lose sight of the purpose of your service and all your activity, which is to promote life, to save lives, to be a constant defender of life,” the pope wrote in his text.

Pope Francis also thanked police and prison guards who are “at the forefront of the fight against crime and violence” and all those who, in the name of their nations, are “engaged in relief work in the wake of natural disasters, the safeguarding of the environment, rescue efforts at sea, the protection of the vulnerable and the promotion of peace.”

Pope Francis took the microphone at the end of Mass to lead the recitation of the Angelus but also to insist that “armed service should be exercised only for legitimate self-defense and never to impose dominion over another nation.”

“May weapons everywhere be silenced, and the cries of the people asking for peace be heard,” he said.

The pilgrims were formally welcomed to Rome Feb. 8 with an outdoor concert in Piazza del Popolo under a steady rain. Jesuit Father Andriy Zelinskyy, coordinator of chaplains for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, was there with a retired Ukrainian bishop and three other Ukrainian chaplains.

“The goal of a pilgrimage is always to go back to your roots, to find where you are and why you are here. For Christians, it is to love and serve our Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified, died and rose for us,” he told Catholic News Service. “And this is true for war-wounded humanity as well.”

The Jubilee gathering of military and police from about 100 countries “is already a sign of hope,” he said. “We come together to pray, to stand against evil and to renew our commitment to peace and defending human dignity.”