In the morning of Friday 2 December, the Holy Father Francis received in audience a delegation from the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary.

The following is the Pope’s address to those present during the audience:

Address of the Holy Father

I joke when I say it, but it is true. When we say these things about justice, which the prophets keep repeating: about the orphan, the widow, the stranger, the poor, isn't it true? They tell you that you are a communist. And look, they say to me: "This Pope, instead of talking about God, is talking about social issues". And they go together: justice, the justice of the heart, throughout the Bible, is always with God and with our neighbour. They go together. In other words, worship and serve, worship and help.

He who only helps and does not worship is a good atheist, nothing more. He who worships and does not help is a cynic, a liar. The two things together. And we have to strive for that, for our faith to become works and for our works to lead us to faith. It is a circle. I like what you said and we have to underline it, because the method of misinterpreting the things that we pastoral workers say is our daily bread: they extract a little bit of what we said, and not everything else; and they decontextualise everything.

And a little word, thinking of your great-grandfather, your grandfather: a crime cannot be taken back. You can forgive, you can resign yourself, but the mark remains. Like an operation, the scar remains.

This war troubles me, it causes me suffering. Brothers against brothers, but not just this one. To think that in one century there were three world wars: 1939-1945, 1914-1918, and this one. To think that, if no weapons were made for a year, hunger in the world would end, because I think it is the biggest industry. Think, that a war is waged when an empire feels weak, so it kills to feel stronger and to use the weapons it has to sell or give to make new ones. It makes me suffer to see those drones that were going around Ukraine being tested. That they are new weapons that they are testing, at the expense of people dying.

A culture of meekness, of the just man. Who is the just man? And Jeremiah expresses it very well. Against a culture of cruelty, of man as a wolf to man, let us work from our faith, with these common holy books, and giving an example of brotherhood.

Thank you for this visit, truly. Besides, it brings me good porteño air, which is missed here. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Keep going forward!