Dear brothers and sisters gathered in Lampedusa!

“O’scia!”. The breeze, the breath: I wish this to you, greeting you in your dialect. And this is how our beloved Pope Francis greeted you in 2013 when he came among you: it was his first journey. You know that in the Bible the breeze, the breath are what we translate as “the spirit”. And in this way, by greeting you – today at a distance, but I hope soon in presence, in person – as believers we invoke the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, upon each other.

The fruits of the Spirit, dear friends, are abundant among you. You remind me of what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians of Thessalonia: you have “received the Word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers” (1Thess 1:6-7). Indeed, the geographical position of Lampedusa and Linosa has always made you a door to Europe. In recent decades, this has required your community to make an enormous commitment to welcoming others, which has brought you from the heart of the Mediterranean to the heart of the Church, “so that”, as Saint Paul says, again, “we need not say anything” (1Thess 1:8), since your faith and charity are now known to all. It is an intangible but real heritage.

My “thank you”, which is the “thank you” of the entire Church for your witness, extends and renews that of Pope Francis. “Thank you” to the associations, the volunteers, the mayors and the administrations that have succeeded one another over time; “thank you” to the priests, the doctors, the security forces and all those who, often invisibly, have shown and show the smile and the attention of a human face to the people who have survived in their desperate journey of hope.

You are a bulwark of that humanity which shouted rationales, atavistic fears and unjust measures tend to undermine. There is no justice without compassion; there is no legitimacy without listening to the pain of others. So many victims – and among them, so many mothers, and so many children! – from the depths of the Mare nostrum cry out not only to heaven, but to our hearts. Numerous migrant brothers and sisters have been buried in Lampedusa, and repose in the ground like seeds from which a new world will germinate. Thanks be to God, there are thousands of faces and names of people who now live a better life, and will never forget your charity. Many of them have in turn become workers for justice and peace, because good is contagious.

Sisters and brothers, may the breath of the Spirit upon you never be lacking! It is true, with the passing of the years, fatigue can set in. As in a race, we can lose our breath. Fatigue tends to call into question what has been done and, at times, even to divide us. We need to react together, remaining united and opening ourselves once again to the breath of God. All the good you have done may seem like drops in the ocean. It is not, it is much more! 

The globalization of indifference, which Pope Francis denounced starting precisely from Lampedusa, today seems to have transformed into a globalization of powerlessness. Faced with injustice and innocent suffering, we are more aware, but we risk remaining immobile, silent and sad, overcome by the sensation that nothing can be done. What can I do, in the face of such great evils? The globalization of powerlessness is the offspring of a lie: that history has always gone this way, that history is written by the victors. But that is not true: history is devastated by the powerful, but it is saved by the humble, the righteous, the martyrs, in whom goodness shines forth and authentic humanity resists and is renewed.

Just as Pope Francis opposed the globalization of indifference with the culture of encounter, so today I would like for us, together, to begin to oppose the globalization of powerlessness with a culture of reconciliation. To reconcile is a particular way of meeting one another. Today we must meet each other by healing our wounds, forgiving each other for the evil we have done and also that we have not done, but whose effects we bear. So much fear, so many prejudices, so many great walls, even invisible ones, that are between us and between our peoples, as consequences of a wounded history. Evil is handed down from one generation to another, from one community to another. But good is also transmitted, and it knows that it is stronger! To practice it, to put it back into circulation, we must become experts in reconciliation. It is necessary to repair what has been broken, treat bleeding memories with delicacy, approach one another with patience, identify with the history and pain of others, and recognize that we have the same dreams and the same hopes. Enemies do not exist: only brothers and sisters exist. It is the culture of reconciliation. There is a need for gestures of reconciliation and policies of reconciliation.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us go forward together along this path of encounter and reconciliation. In this way, the islands of peace will multiply and become pillars of bridges, so that peace may reach all peoples and all creatures. In this horizon of hope and commitment, through the intercession of Mary Star of the Sea, I bless you and greet you with great affection. O'scià! And may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, descend upon you. Amen.

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Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 12 September 2025