Pope Francis on Sunday lumped The United States in with nations like Syria and North Korea, saying “dangerous alliances” could harm refugees and the poor.
The Pope said America is among nations that have a “distorted vision of the world.”
“I worry about very dangerous alliances among powers that have a distorted vision of the world: America and Russia, China and North Korea, Putin and Assad in the war in Syria,” he said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
Directing his comments toward world leaders gathered in Germany for the G20 summit, Francis said the meeting of the world’s top economies worries him.
“Our main and unfortunately growing problem in the world today is that of the poor, the weak, the excluded, which includes migrants,” said Francis, the first pope in 1,300 years to come from a nation outside Europe. “This is why the G20 worries me: It mainly hits immigrants.”
Francis told world leaders that Europe is the “richest continent in the whole world” and that leaders there should not close borders. Conflict across the Middle East and Africa have forced millions to flee their homes, making them refugees. But few problems were solved at the G20 — while leaders agreed to support free trade, there was no consensus on how to deal with the refugee problem.
The Pope made his comments in an interview with La Repubblica reporter Eugenio Scalfari, CNS News reported.
“Last Thursday, I got a call from Pope Francis,” Scalfari reported. “It was about noon, and I was at the newspaper when my phone rang.”
He said the pope wanted to see him at four that afternoon, according to a Google translation of the Italian report.
“Pope Francis told me to be very concerned about the meeting of the G20,” Scalfari wrote.
“I am afraid there are very dangerous alliances between powers who have a distorted view of the world: America and Russia, China and North Korea, Russia and Assad in the war in Syria,” the pope said.
As printed in Italian in La Repubblica, the pope said: “Temo che ci siano alleanze assai pericolose tra Potenze che hanno una visione distorta del mondo: America e Russia, Cina e Corea del Nord, Russia e Assad nella guerra di Siria.”
As transclated into English by Agence France Presse, which picked up the story, Pope Francis told La Repubblica: “I worry about very dangerous alliances between powers which have a distorted vision of the world: America and Russia, China and North Korea, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and (Syria’s Bashar al-) Assad over the war in Syria.”
“The danger concerns immigration,” the pope continued to La Repubblica, as translated by AFP. “Our main and unfortunately growing problem in the world today is that of the poor, the weak, the excluded, which includes migrants.”
“This is why the G20 worries me: It mainly hits immigrants,” Pope Francis said, according to AFP.
In the same interview, according to La Repubblica, Pope Francis said that Europe must take on a “federal structure.”
“I also thought many times to this problem and came to the conclusion that, not only but also for this reason, Europe must take as soon as possible a federal structure,” the pope said, according to the Google translation of the La Repubblica article.