Pope turns focus to Middle East after synod

(ANSA) - Vatican City, October 20 - Pope Francis on Monday turned his attention from a family synod that ended with rifts on gay and divorced people to the Middle East where he and the Vatican's top foreign official urged the UN to step up the ISIS fight and appealed for the region's beleaguered Christians.
    In the wake of the synod, Francis told the Catholic Church that it should not be afraid of change.
    At the two-week synod on the family, divisions within the clergy on gays and divorced people again came to the fore despite what many commentators have described as Francis's "revolutionary" message on these issues.
    The synod's final document showed openings on these issues that appeared in a half-way working document had largely been reversed. Vote counts published by the Vatican showed that three controversial articles, including the final version of one concerning gays, won an absolute majority but failed to get the two-thirds vote needed for a broad consensus.
    "God is not afraid of new things. That is why he is continuously surprising us, opening our hearts and guiding us in unexpected ways," the pope said during a Mass on Sunday at which he beatified Pope Paul VI. At the weekend, the pope told around 200 bishops that it was necessary for conservatives to avoid "hostile rigidity" but also warned liberals against "destructive good will".
    The first version of the synod document spoke of "accepting and valuing their sexual orientations" and giving gays "a welcoming home" and also mentioned the "gifts and qualities" homosexuals have to offer.
    Those parts were deleted from the final document.
    The final version stressed that there was "no foundation" to compare homosexual unions with heterosexual marriage.
    Turning his attention to the Middle East, Francis said said terrorism in Iraq and Syria had reached "dimensions previously unimaginable" with many Christians "persecuted" and forced to "leave their homes in a brutal way... unfortunately amid the indifference of many". He added that this "unjust situation" called for an "adequate response from the international community". The Argentine pontiff also told cardinals and patriarches gathered at a consistory that "we cannot resign ourselves to think of the Middle East without Christians, they have confessed the name of Jesus there for 2,000 years".
    The Vatican's top diplomat also drove home the massage to the consistory.
    The United Nations must act to prevent possible new acts of "genocide" by ISIS, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said. "In the case of the violations and abuse committed by the so-called Islamic State, the international community, via the United Nations and the structures set up for such emergencies, will have to act to prevent possible new genocide and assist the numerous refugees," he said.
    "Attention must be paid," Parolin added, "to the sources that sustain (ISIS') terrorist activities through more-or-less clear political support, as well as through illegal commerce in oil and the supply of weapons and technology". Cardinal Parolin then repeated Pope Francis' denunciation of the arms trade, saying: "In a moment of particular gravity, given the growing number of victims caused by the conflicts raging in the Middle East, the international community cannot close its eyes before this question, which has profound ethical relevance".
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