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Pope raps 'brazen' freedom in weapons circulation

Monday, 13 June 2016 10:18 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 13 June 2016 10:19 AM ]

Pope Francis (R) salutes a priest at the end of a Mass as a part of the Jubilee year of Mercy at St. Peter’s square in the Vatican, June 12, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Pope Francis has condemned the “brazen” freedom and ease with which weapons are circulated across the world, a day after 50 people were killed in a mass shooting in the US city of Orlando.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church made the remarks during his speech at the headquarters of the World Food Programme (WFP) in the Italian capital of Rome on Monday, denouncing how obtaining lethal weapons faces no obstacles while delivering humanitarian aid does.

“Whereas forms of aid and development projects are obstructed by involved and comprehensible political decisions, skewed ideological visions and impenetrable customs barriers, weaponry is not,” the pontiff said.

“It makes no difference where arms come from; they circulate with brazen and virtually absolute freedom in many parts of the world,” he said.
"As a result, wars are fed, not people,” the Pope said.

On Sunday, Pope Francis condemned the Orlando shooting as an act of “homicidal folly and senseless hatred.” However, he did not explicitly refer to it in his Monday speech.

At least 50 people were killed and 53 others injured in an Orlando nightclub mass shooting on Sunday. The attack was claimed by the Daesh terrorist group.

The shooter, identified by US media as Omar Mateen, an alleged Daesh sympathizer, was a US citizen of Afghan descent from Port St. Lucie, Florida. He also took hostages at the club in the complex but was later killed by SWAT forces.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the pontiff attributed global hunger to inequality and overconsumption in some places.

“Food shortage is not something natural,” he said at the UN agency.

“That fact that today, well into the 21st century, so many people suffer from this scourge is due to a selfish and wrong distribution of resources, to the ‘merchandising’ of food,” the Pope said.

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