Response from the Vatican to Jainacharya Yugbhushansuriji

Response from
the Vatican

15th July 2021

Dear Jainacharya Yugbhushansuri,

I hereby wish to acknowledge your kind letter to His Holiness Pope Francis, dated 17 May 2021.

Your thoughts and concerns expressed in the letter on the theme of ‘Global Mantra to Save
Humanity’ are relevant in these times when the whole world continues to grapple with the coronavirus
pandemic-induced crises. If they are not urgently and adequately attended to, they may give rise, as
you rightly note, to recurrence of pandemics. The crises that we currently face also call us all to reorient
and to redirect our lives towards building a more fraternal, just and harmonious society. But to build
such a society, it is also necessary to eliminate the viruses which are detrimental to harmonious and
peaceful co-living of all in the society such as inequality, injustice, intolerance, religious
fundamentalism, extremism, unhealthy nationalism, exploitation of the poor and the most vulnerable
of the society.

Pope Francis has, not so infrequently, called for a world order inspired by an ethics of solidarity
that respects and takes responsibility for one another and for nature. He rejects all such things –
including weapons of mass destruction – which create a false sense of security and, therefore, cannot
constitute the basis for peaceful coexistence between members of the human family (cf. Message to
the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, 27 March 2017). He has also called for a “fraternal and cooperative globalization” (Address
to the Round Table of the Global Foundation, 14 January 2017) whereby each member of the human
family respects the dignity and rights of others and reaches out to them, particularly the poor and the
needy, with compassion and sense of responsibility, and tries to meliorate their conditions, joining
hands with others.

May all of us, believers and spiritual leaders, led by our own faith convictions and personal
examples contribute our mite, individually and collectively, to bringing about this much desired
society-built-on-solidarity, with an ever-increasing awareness that we are part of one another and are
brothers and sisters, for the integral development and peace of all!

With best wishes