On October 13, Pope Francis received the editors and collaborators of Mondo e Missione [World and Mission], the journal of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), a religious institute founded by Venerable Angelo Ramazzotti in 1850. The papal audience commemorated the 150th anniversary of the journal’s founding.

“Being a voice of the voiceless is a primary task of the journal, as of other initiatives the PIME has promoted in the field of communication,” such as AsiaNews, the Pope said his address. “These are all ways of narrating the world by placing oneself beside those who do not have the right to speak or who are not listened to, the poorest, oppressed minorities, victims of forgotten wars.”

“I want to emphasize this: the forgotten wars,” the Pope continued. “Today we are all worried, and it is right that we should be, about a war here in Europe, at the door of Europe and in Europe, but there have been wars for years: for more than ten years in Syria, think of Yemen, think of Myanmar, think of Africa. These don’t come to mind, they are not in cultured Europe.”