VATICAN CITY: Not wanting to disappoint 200 Japanese junior high school students, Pope Francis held a special audience August 21 in the San Damaso Courtyard of the apostolic palace.
The students from Seibu Gakuen Bunri Junior High School in Tokyo had planned their trip to Rome and the Vatican long before the Holy See announced Pope Francis would not hold his weekly general audiences in August.
The pope told the students that travelling, getting to know people who are different from themselves, learning about other cultures and religions “is good for you, it helps you grow.”
Growth, he said, is impossible if a person stays closed in on himself. “If we go out to encounter other people, other cultures, other religions, we grow and we begin that beautiful adventure called dialogue,” he said.
“Dialogue is what brings peace,” the pope told the group, which included Christians and Buddhists. “Peace is impossible without dialogue.”
CNS
