“Coming from a martyred Syria, I am here to pray with you for the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary for peace and reconciliation in that beloved country, for the Middle East, for all the populations tormented by war or natural disasters”. This was said by the apostolic nuncio to Syria, card. Mario Zenari, in the sermon he held in the Shrine of Pompeii to celebrate the Day of Our Lady of the Rosary, where he led the traditional Prayer. The cardinal described the horror that is experienced in Syria every day, a torment that mainly affects the younger ones. “I come from a conflict, the Syrian one, that has been going on for nearly eight years”, he mentioned, a conflict that could be defined “as the Massacre of the Innocents”. “Many are the children who are pulled out dead or injured from the rubble, torn apart by explosions, abused, tortured, enlisted, starved”. Despite “such indifference”, the cardinal thanked all those who “try to dry the tears of the suffering ones, even at the expense of their lives”, and ideally hugged the mothers, forced to mourn their children, a pain associated with the one engraved in marble by Michelangelo in his Pietà. “How many mothers – he pointed out – can one see transfigured in that work: all the mothers who hold their dead children in their arms, dead of an early death, died of violence, war or natural disasters, the mothers of Syria, who hold half a million dead children and one and half million injured children in their arms”. The apostolic nuncio to Syria also mentioned “the sufferings of persecuted Christians; the problems that families are currently having; the efforts of the Synod Fathers, gathered in the Vatican to reflect on young people”.