Elena, seven, a Japanese girl traumatised by the recent earthquake and tsunami, told the Pope in a video message: “I’m very afraid because the house in which I felt safe shook a lot and lots of my classmates were killed. Why do I have to be so afraid? Why do children have to suffer such sadness?”
The Pope replied: “I also have the same questions: why is it this way? Why do you have to suffer so much while others live in ease?
“And we do not have the answers but we know Jesus suffered as you have. Be assured, we are with you, with all the Japanese children who are suffering. We want to help you with our prayers, with our actions, and you can be sure that God will help you.”
An Italian woman asked the Pope whether the soul of her 40-year-old son, who is in a vegetative state from multiple sclerosis, remained within his body.
The Pope replied: “Certainly his soul is still present in his body. The situation is a little like a guitar which has had its strings broken and can no longer be played....the soul cannot be heard but it remains within.
“I’m also sure that this hidden soul can feel your love, even if it cannot understand the details, the words. But it feels the presence of love.”
A group of Christian students in Iraq told the Pope: “We Christians in Baghdad are persecuted like Jesus.” They asked for advice on how to help fellow Christians reconsider their desire to emigrate.
The Pope said he prayed daily for Iraqi Christians and urged them to “have faith, to be patient.”
He also called on Iraqi authorities to ensure the dwindling Christian minority was protected from persecution. “All the institutions that truly have the possibility to do something in Iraq for you should do it.”
A Muslim woman from Ivory Coast, where months of political standoff have been marked by fighting, asked: “As an ambassador of Jesus, what do you advise for our country?”
The Pope urged “all sides” in the conflict to renounce violence and told her the Vatican was doing what it can.
“The only path is to renounce violence, to begin anew with dialogue.
“I have to say that I have received heart-breaking letters from the Ivory Coast in which I see the sorrow, the depth of suffering, and I am saddened that I can do so little.”
