"The meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will take place, we are preparing it," said Pope Leo XIV, during his meeting with the press today.
This is the meeting that the Ecumenical Patriarch and the late Pope Francis had agreed to for May 26 in Nicaea, Asia Minor, on the occasion of the 1.700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council.
The new pontiff, however, did not mention whether there will be a short postponement, for organizational reasons, or whether he will go to Nice as usual in two weeks.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is expected to come to Rome next Sunday, May 18, for the enthronement of the new Holy Father of the Roman Catholic Church and to have a special meeting with him.
"Release the journalists who were imprisoned for seeking the truth"
Pope Leo XIV called for the release of journalists who have been imprisoned "because they sought and told the truth," to whom he expressed "the solidarity of the Church" today during a meeting with media representatives.
"The Church recognizes in these witnesses - I am thinking of those who recount the war even at the risk of their lives - the courage of those who defend dignity, justice and the right of peoples to be informed," the pope stressed, assessing that "only peoples who are informed can make free choices."
The head of the Catholic Church stated that "the suffering of these imprisoned journalists weighs on the conscience of nations and the international community and calls on all of us to protect the precious good of freedom of expression and the press."
"You are on the front line to narrate the conflicts and hopes for peace, the situations of injustice and poverty and the silent work of many for a better world. That is why I ask you to consciously and courageously choose the path of a communication of peace," said the 69-year-old pope, who was elected on Thursday, after two days of conclave.
Robert Francis Prevost had already addressed yesterday, Sunday, a call for peace to the "great ones of this world", during his first Sunday prayer from the balcony of the basilica of St. Peter's.
Underlining the "challenges" that exist to "navigate and narrate" the "difficult" times, he asked that we "never succumb to mediocrity."
The spiritual leader of 1,4 billion Catholics also stated that "one of the most important challenges is to promote a communication capable of taking us out of the 'Tower of Babel' in which we sometimes find ourselves."
He also highlighted the challenge of "artificial intelligence", a topic he had already raised on Saturday before the cardinals and which, according to him, requires "responsibility and foresight".
"Noisy, dynamic communication is not necessary," he added, and called for priority to be given "rather" to "communication capable of listening, of collecting the voices of the weak who have no voice."
Source: protothema.gr
