Pope tells Japanese youth to respect diversity

November 26, 2019

Tokyo--Visiting Pope Francis preached the importance of respecting diversity and helping others at a meeting with young people in Tokyo on Monday.

The pope later held a large-scale mass before some 50,000 followers and others at the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium.

In the gathering at St. Mary's Cathedral in the Japanese capital, the pope heard stories from three young people who had experienced bullying or discrimination.

Bullies are wimps, the pope said. There is no stronger weapon against bullying than standing up with classmates and friends and saying that bullying is bad, he added.

Regarding the value modern society places on competitiveness and productivity, the pope said many people have become slaves to loneliness even if they are rich in material terms.

The most important thing is not what have been obtained but with whom they are shared, the pope said.

At the end of his speech, delivered to some 900 young people at the gathering, the pope stressed the importance of pursuing dreams.

In his sermon at Tokyo Dome, the pope said he came to know that many people suffer social isolation in Japan. He told the audience to accept diverse others, including those disabled and diseased.

The Tokyo Dome mass was attended by Iwao Hakamada, an 83-year-old man seeking a retrial of a 1966 murder case in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, over which he received a death sentence.

Hakamada was baptized in a prison after his death sentence became final judgment in December 1984. He was released from jail in March 2014 after Shizuoka District Court granted him a retrial.

He has appealed to the Supreme Court after Tokyo High Court overturned the district court's decision in June 2018. His sentence is suspended.

He attended the mass with his 86-year-old sister, Hideko, at the invitation from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan. Jiji Press