Pope Francis has accused those who frequently reject refugees fleeing war of silencing their cries for help as coldly as they would flick a television remote.
He told a cross-section of the world's Catholic and other Christian leaders at a prayer service in Assisi in Italy that war sullies people with hate and the earth with arms.
"Our brothers and sisters, who live under the threat of bombs, are forced to leave their homes into the unknown. Stripped of everything, (they) plead for peace", he said.
"Who listens to them? Who bothers responding to them?
"Far too often they encounter the deafening silence of indifference, the selfishness of those annoyed at being pestered, the coldness of those who silence their cry for help with the same ease with which television channels are changed."
The head of the Catholic Church closed a three-day meeting where about 500 representatives of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and other faiths discussed how their members could better promote peace and reconciliation.
Francis, who delivered two addresses and shared meals with the leaders, said indifference to suffering had become "a new and deeply sad paganism".
