Pope Francis warns of "regression of democracy"
Pope Francis today (4) considered that there is "a regression of democracy" in Europe and the rest of the world, mainly because of populism and the "distance of institutions".
Francisco spoke before the president and prime minister of Greece, Katerina Sakelaropul and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, upon arriving in the country where democracy was born, as the pope stated in his speech.
"One cannot fail to note with concern how today, not just on the European continent, there is a setback in democracy," said the pope, quoted by the EFE agency.
Francisco considered that "authoritarianism is expedient [diligent], and the easy promises proposed by populism are attractive".
"In several societies, worried about security and numbed by consumerism, tiredness and malaise lead to a kind of democratic skepticism," said the Catholic Church leader and head of state at the Vatican, who began his visit to Greece today. of having been to Cyprus.
For the pope, this skepticism towards democracy "is provoked by the distance from institutions, by the fear of loss of identity and by bureaucracy", and the remedy is "good politics".
Francisco called for a move "from partisanship to participation, from a mere commitment to support a faction to an active involvement in the promotion of all".
Faced with challenges "such as climate protection, the pandemic, the common market and widespread poverty", he insisted on the need to defend multilateralism from "excessive nationalist pretensions" and for "common demands" to overcome "private interests ".
The pope said he hoped that the answer "to the seductions of authoritarianism" would be "democracy", that "the individualistic indifference is opposed to caring for the other", so that there would be "a renewed humanism".
"Which is what our times and our Europe need," he added.
In front of the Greek authorities, he recalled the fires that had ravaged Greece in recent years. He insisted that "commitments made in the fight against climate change should be increasingly shared and not a facade, that they be taken seriously, that words should be followed by deeds, so that children do not pay for their parents' hypocrisy once more."
Text translated using artificial intelligence.
