The pope also said this difficult time should not be a reason to forget the suffering of the Syrian people.
The pope also invited quarantined Christians to join in a global rosary prayer on March 19, at 9 p.m., Rome time.
He applied John Paul II's message to the current pandemic.
He recalled the 25th anniversary of John Paul II's encyclical, Evangelium vitae, which spoke of the right to human life.
