At the death of Pope Francis, a community in Romania, which is not necessarily that of the Catholics, cry open. The pope was the first to forgive some of the most needy of the Romanian citizens

When he was, in 2019, in Romania, Pope Francis entered one of the poorest neighborhoods of Transylvan Blaj. And not only that he entered, but he held a screeching speech, which no high prelate had spoken in Romania. He apologized to the Roma, because they were made slaves, humiliated and exploited by the church. “A gesture of humanity beyond our power of understanding,” say today, in a dialogue with Hotnews, a few representatives of the Roma community in Romania.

At the end of his visit to Romania, Pope Francis asked the Roma for “the moments when they were discriminated against and mistreated”. He made this gesture in a neighborhood in the city of Blaj, living around 3,000 people, after meeting the representatives of the Roma community to talk about their problems. Two years later, the Holy Father also repeated the gesture in a ghetto in Košice, a city in the east of Slovakia, near the border with Hungary.

Activists Gelu Sunday and Ciprian Necula speak today, for the public Hotnews.ro, about the significance of Pope Francis and about the lessons they have to learn and the clergy of other denominations from the words spoken by the Vatican parent.

• Ciprian Necula is an activist for rights and freedoms, a doctor in sociology, associate professor SNSPA and the president of Roma Education Fund.
• Gelu Sunday is a Romanian sociologist and activist of Roma, associate professor of the Faculty of Sociology and Social Assistance of the University of Bucharest.

“However, I have a weight on my heart. It is the weight of discrimination, segregations and mistreatment suffered by your communities. History tells us that neither Christians nor Catholics have been alien to this evil so great. For this I would like to ask for forgiveness. I ask for the Church, in the name of the Church, in the name of the Lord, Wrong, with Cain's gaze and not with Abel, and we did not know how to recognize you, to value you and to defend you in your specificity, “said Pope Francis, in Blaj, in the Greek-Catholic Roma community in the” Barbu Lăutaru “neighborhood, in June 2019.

“A gesture of forgiveness in the deepest Christian way ”

According to activist Ciprian Necula, the gesture made by Pope Francis was a “reparative” one.

“Europe has a moral debt to Roma, given that all states have experienced forms of aggression and oppression of Roma: there were slaves in us, in the Western states they were expelled. It is a negative history, and Pope Francis is among the first high prelates of humanity who have resorted to such a gesture.

He believes that historical reconciliation is essential for improving the present image of the Roma community: “Pope Francis's gesture is one of humanity carried at a level beyond our power of understanding. For me, this gesture speaks of reconciliation. You cannot wait for Roma to be good today without the historical period. His lesson is for us, the Orthodox, but also for some of the Pentecostals who now use associations of the extreme right for political purposes ”, says the activist.

“It's a first step towards a historical reconciliation,” says Gelu on Sunday about the speech of the Pontiff in Blaj.

“The pope was a representative of the disadvantaged and tried to talk about the Church for all, reminding that in front of God we are equal, and those who were once hauling should be part of it today. But, in order to build, you must first repent. It is a Christian gesture for reconciliation to start with a gesture that calls for forgiveness, ”says the sociologist.

Lesson given by Pope Francis

Ciprian Necula believes that Pope Francis's gesture should also be followed by the Orthodox representatives of the Church. “In the case of the 500-year bondage of the Roma on the Romanian territory, the BOR leaders did not ask for forgiveness for the form of dehumanization to which the Church not only contributed or tolerated, but was a main actor, being one of the opponents of the disobed. believes Necula.

“It should only read the word of God!”, Says Gelu on Sunday about the representatives of the other religious cults.

“I hope with all my heart that all the representatives of the Church understand that God has created us all the same. And that forgiveness is the first gesture you have to make to your fellows. The fact that they do not say something about them. That you tell everyone: “I was a sinner, but God helped me!” The fact that they do not even recognize sin is regrettable.

Pope Francis's full message at Blaj:

Pope Francis's message was also taken over by the international press. Reuters wrote that “the Pope asks for forgiveness for the historical mistreatment of the Roma”, and the BBC and Associated Press pointed out that the Pontiff spoke about “discrimination of the Roma”.

“Dear brothers and sisters, good day!

I am glad to meet you and thank you for your receipt. You, Father John, do not make mistakes in asserting that certainty as safe as he often forgotten: in the Church of Christ there is room for all. The church is a meeting place, and we must remember this not as a beautiful slogan, but as part of our identity card, as Christians. You reminded us of this, giving the martyr Ioan Suciu as an example, who knew how to give, through concrete gestures, to God's desire to meet with each person, in friendship and sharing. The gospel of joy is transmitted in the joy of the meeting, being aware that we have a father who loves us. Look at him, we understand how to look at each other. With this spirit I wanted to shake your hands, to look in your eyes, to let you enter my heart, in prayer, confident that I will have a place in your prayer and in your heart.

I still have a weight on my heart. It is the weight of discrimination, segregations and mistreatment suffered by your communities. History tells us that neither Christians, nor even Catholics, were so much alien to this evil. For this I would like to ask you for forgiveness. I ask forgiveness-on behalf of the Church of the Lord and you-for the moments when, during history, I have discriminated, mistreated or looked at you in the wrong way, with Cain's gaze and not with Abel, and we did not know how to recognize you, to value you and to defend you in your specificity. For Cain, his brother does not matter. By indifference we supply prejudices and instigate hatred. How many times do we not judge recklessly, using words that hurt, with attitudes that resemble hatred and create distances! When someone is left behind, the human family doesn't go forward. We are not full Christians, and not even human, if we do not know how to see the person before his actions, before our judgments and prejudices.

In the history of mankind, there is always Abel and Cain. There is the outstretched hand and the hand that hits. There is opening at the meeting and closing due to conflicts. There is receipt and there is exclusion. There is the one who sees in the other a brother and the one who sees him as a hindrance on his way. There is the civilization of love and there is the civilization of hatred. Every day we have to choose between being Abel or Cain. As in front of a crossroads we are called to make a decisive choice: to travel the way of reconciliation or that of revenge. Let's choose the way of Jesus! It is a more tiring path, but it is the way that leads to peace. And she goes through forgiveness. Let us not let ourselves go by the wave of the wicked ones that grind us inside us: without rancidity! Since no evil leads another evil, no revenge gives satisfaction to injustice, no resentment does good to the heart, no closure in itself.

Dear brothers and sisters, you, as a people, have a role of protagonists to assume; You should not be afraid to share and provide those specific characteristics to you that define you, which mark your path, and we have so much need: the value of life and family, in a broad sense (summers, uncle, …); Solidarity, hospitality, help, support and defense of the weakest in the community; the valorization and respect of the elderly; The religious sense of life, spontaneity and joy of living. Do not deprive the society in which you are in these gifts, but be available and receive all those good things that others can offer and bring. That is why I would like to invite you to go together, where you are, in the construction of a more human world, passing over fears and suspicions, letting the barriers that break away from each other, fueling mutual trust in the patient and never a futile of fraternity. Let us work together, with dignity: the dignity of the family, the dignity to win our daily bread – it makes you move on – and the dignity of prayer. Always looking forward (cf. The meeting of prayer with the Roma and Sinti people, May 9, 2019).

This is the last meeting in my visit to Romania. I came to this beautiful and welcoming country as a pilgrim and brother, to live different meetings. And now I return home enriched, taking places and moments, but especially faces. Your faces will give color to my memories and be present in my prayer. Thank you and I take you with me! And now I bless you, but first I ask you a great favor: pray for me! Thank you!”