Mags GarganCardinal urged governments to use their resources to prevent people from “becoming foreign terrorist fighters”
Addressing the UN Security Council last week, the Vatican's secretary of state said "terrorism represents a fundamental threat to our common humanity" and its escalation requires the response of a "shared commitment" from all nations.
"Nations must come together in order to fulfil our primary responsibility to protect people threatened by violence and direct assaults on their human dignity," Cardinal Pietro Parolin said.
He also urged countries to address the root causes "upon which international terrorism feeds," stressing that there is a "strong sociocultural component" that leads people to become involved in modern terrorist groups.
Immigrants
The cardinal said young people who join these organisations "often come from poor immigrant families, disillusioned by what they feel as a situation of exclusion and by the lack of integration and values in certain societies”.
He urged governments to use their resources to prevent people from "becoming foreign terrorist fighters" but to also engage with society to "address the problems of communities most at risk of radicalization and recruitment and to achieve their satisfactory social integration”.
To counter the "phenomenon of terrorism," the cardinal emphasised that "cultural understanding among people and countries and social justice for all is indispensable”.