According to a report on the official website of the Vatican’s Press Office, in his address at the New York-based meeting, the Pope said, “It is mportant to spread a culture of meetings, a culture of dialogue, a culture of listening and understanding.”

At the annual conference, promoted by former US President Bill, Pope Francis pointed out that in light of today’s many challenges: climate change, the humanitarian crises affecting migrants and refugees, the care of children and so many others, “I would add one more, the winds of war.”

Those winds of war fuel what I have often called World War III in bits and pieces, which now involves all of us, said the Pope, who added that it is time to find the change to peace, the change to fraternity. It is time for weapons to cease, for us to return to dialogue and diplomacy.

It is necessary to share the opinion on how to contribute to the common good and how not to leave aside the most vulnerable people, such as children, the Holy Pontiff noted in his message to those attending the two-day event, which began on Sunday, because “only together we can heal the world from the anonymity of the globalization of indifference.”

It is time to work together to stop the ecological catastrophe before it is too late and to face together the migration emergencies, remembering that we are not talking about numbers, but about people: men, women and children, he said.

The Pope stressed that a great and common assumption of responsibility is necessary. No challenge, no challenge is too big if we face it from the personal conversion of each one of us, from the contribution that each one of us can make to overcome it, and from the awareness of being part of the same destiny, Francis said.

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