Pope Francis is currently on a visit to Asia and Oceania. The first of four places the Holy Father will visit is Indonesia. Later, Francis will also travel to Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.
During a meeting with the faithful in the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, the Pope quoted the words of the Polish Nobel Prize winner Wisława Szymborska.
Jakarta: Pope Francis quoted a poem by Wisława Szymborska
The Pope visited the most important place of worship for Catholics in Jakarta on Wednesday – the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption. During his speech, Francis referred to the motto of his visit to Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest number of Muslims: “Faith, brotherhood, compassion.”
“A 20th-century poet used a very beautiful expression to describe this attitude: she wrote that being brothers means loving one another, recognizing that ‘we are as different from each other as two drops of pure water'” – emphasized the Pope, speaking about fraternity. These words come from Wisława Szymborska’s poem “Nothing twice” from the collection “Wołanie do Yeti” from 1957. – This is exactly how it is. No two drops of water are alike, just as no two brothers, not even twins, are completely identical – added the Pope. As he emphasized, “a living fraternity therefore means mutual acceptance, recognizing each other as equal in diversity”.
