VATICAN (SE): At his Sunday Angelus on June 18, Pope Francis expressed his profound gratitude to all the affection, care, friendship, and prayerful support given to hime during his time at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for a hernia procedure, Vatican News reported. The pope had returned to the Vatican on June 16 after release from the hospital.
“If we want to be good apostles, we must be like children,” the Holy Father said, allowing the Father to transform our hearts and give us that joy and that peace that we ourselves cannot attain.
The pope said that we proclaim that God is near not “by saying many words, but performing many deeds of love and hope in the name of the Lord.”
OSV News reported that after the Angelus, Pope Francis noted that June 20 is the World Refugee Day and spoke of his “great sadness and deep sorrow” after a fishing boat, packed with migrants—estimates ranged from 500 to 700 men, women and children onboard—sank off the Greek coast on June 14 as it attempted to travel from Tobruk, Libya, to southern Italy.
Just over 100 people, all men, were rescued and, as of June 18, 78 bodies had been recovered.
“It seems the sea was calm,” the pope said.
There are conflicting reports from the Greek coast guard, the European border agency and humanitarian organisations about whether the boat was in distress and about what caused it to capsize.
Nevertheless, Pope Francis said, “I renew my prayer for those who lost their lives and I implore that always everything possible be done to prevent such tragedies.”
The pope also prayed for “the young students, victims of the brutal attack that took place against a school in western Uganda” late on June 16. Officials said members of the Allied Democratic Forces rebel group attacked a secondary school near the Uganda border with Congo, killing 41 people and kidnapping six others.
“This struggle, this war, is everywhere,” the pope said. “Let us pray for peace!”
