Pope Francis on Wednesday condemned the “tragic” killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man choked to death by a white cop in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and prayed for “all those others who have lost their lives as a result of the sin of racism.”
“My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life,” the pope said to people in the United States.
“At the same time, we have to recognize that ‘the violence of recent nights is self-destructive and self-defeating. Nothing is gained by violence and so much is lost,'” he added, according to a statement from Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez.
Simon Ateba is Chief White House Correspondent for Today News Africa. Simon covers President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, the U.S. government, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other financial and international institutions in Washington D.C. and New York City.