Pope Francis on Tuesday warned that power nations should not measure their strength by their military capability to prevail over others.
He said this in his homily Mass in the Estonian capital Tallinn.
“Some people speak in a loud voice, full of self-assurance with no doubts or hesitation.
“Others shout and hurl threats about using weapons, deploying troops and implementing strategies. That way they appear to be stronger.
“But this is not about ‘seeking’ the will of God, but about gaining power so as to prevail over others”.
Although, the Holy Father did not elaborate, he’s believed to have made reference to the three Baltics seceded from the Soviet Union nearly 30 years ago.
“You did not gain your freedom in order to end up as slaves of consumerism, individualism or the thirst for power or domination,’’ he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Pope Francis said young people around the world were right to feel outrage at the Catholic Church’s handling of its sexual abuse scandals.
Francis has come under fire from victims groups and other members of the Church who say he has not done enough to make bishops accountable for mishandling or covering up abuse cases.
“They are outraged when they do not see clear condemnations of sexual and economic scandals,’’ he told 1,000 young people gathered in a Lutheran Church in Tallinn.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in Germany was due to present a report on its sexual abuse record.
Findings leaked to German magazine, Der Spiegel, earlier this month showed that nearly 1,700 of its clerics and priests had sexually abused 3,677 minors over a 70-year period ending in 2014.
A similar study in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania shook the American Catholic Church in August and the number of Chilean bishops who have resigned over a recent sex abuse scandal rose to seven.
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