Pope urges fight against indifference with solidarity

October 26, 2013 - Pope Francis is urging the world’s citizens to fight indifference with solidarity. “Too often we participate in the globalization of indifference. May we strive instead to live global solidarity,” the Pope tweeted on his Twitter account @Pontifex on Saturday. The Argentine Pope, elected to the papacy on March 13, has been leading the way himself by living a simple Spartan life, preferring to stay at the Vatican Casa Santa Marta residence along with other Vatican clerics rather than in the apostolic Palace. The pathetic condition of migrants who undertake dangerous journeys in unsafe boats across the Mediterranean to Italy’s Lampedusa island, made him dedicate his first visit outside Rome to the island in a show of solidarity with them. He chose to celebrate Holy Thursday Mass with young inmates of a juvenile detention centre in Rome, washing their feet as a symbol of service in imitation of Christ. The Pope has also made telephone calls to individuals in difficulties who wrote to him, personally expressing his closeness with them. Meanwhile, the Vatican Secretariat of State on its own Twitter handle @Terzaloggia reiterated the same message: “Our world is so interdependent and interconnected that we must resist the “globalization of indifference.” (Source: Vatican)