Print friendly
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi on Monday said the peace mission to Syria will will take place “as soon as possible” but may be delayed by recent events.
Several prelates, including New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, were set to leave for Syria later this week, but Lombardi said recent fighting in Damascu and unrest in Beirut has to be taken into account.
Fierce fighting erupted on the outskirts of Damascus on Monday when troops tried to storm a rebel-controlled town, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
Beirut meanwhile has been engulfed in violence since the murder on Friday of a top police official which was blamed on Syria.
“We of course must take into account the events of recent days,” the spokesman said.
It is a matter “of responding effectively to the proposed goals of solidarity, peace and reconciliation despite the very serious events that have taken place recently in the region,” he added.
Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone announced the plan to send a peace mission to Syria last week.
The delegation will be made up of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, and representatives from Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Vietnam.
Religion News Service, meanwhile, reported that the peace mission is expected to try to rekindle fledgling attempts to find a political solution to Syria’s civil war.
But the Catholic delegation must balance condemnation of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on rebels with the fears of an Islamist takeover, the news agency reported.
Sources
Related Posts:
News category: World.
