Yes, starting with Turkey itself.
“We cannot resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians, who have professed the name of Jesus there for two thousand years,” the pope and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox Church said in a common declaration issued here on the last leg of a three-day papal visit to Turkey.
The pope made frequent mention on his trip of the plight of Christians and other minorities in areas of Syria and Iraq who have been the focus of persecution by the Islamic State.
His attention to the issue was highlighted in a meeting with a group of young Christian and Muslim refugees from Syria, Iraq and Africa at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Istanbul. Pope Francis listened as an Iraqi Christian girl described the refugees’ sufferings and expressed gratitude for his visit.
“I wish to assure you that I share your sufferings,” the pope said in an address to about 100 young people. “I hope my visit, by the grace of God, may offer you some consolation in your difficult situation.”
“The degrading conditions in which so many refugees are forced to live are intolerable,” he added, and called for greater international cooperation “to counter the other causes which are driving people to leave their home countries, and to improve conditions so that people may remain or return home.”
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Jadde: from Bosnia to Bengal 
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