Pope
Francis urges greater care for street women and children
(Vatican
Radio) Abandoned children and exploited sex workers are a “shameful reality in
our societies”. That was Pope Francis’s message on Thursday to participants at
an international symposium on the pastoral care of street people that has
been taking place in the Vatican this week. The five day meeting, organised by
the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People,
has focused especially on the plight of women and children living on the
streets.
In
his words to participants Pope Francis praised the commitment of the many
different organisations that care for street children and for girls or women
who’re exploited by criminal gangs, or even by their own family members. He
said “every child abandoned or forced to live on the streets, at the mercy of
criminal organizations, is a cry rising up to God, who created man and woman in
his own image. It is an indictment of a social system which we have criticized
for decades, but which we find hard to change in conformity with criteria of
justice”.
The
Pope urged participants not to be disheartened by the many challenges facing
those working with street people in countries across the globe. “The Christian
community,” he said, “needs to be involved at all levels in working to
eliminate everything which forces a child or a woman to live on the street or
to earn a livelihood on the street
Please
find below the full text of Pope Francis’ address
Address
of His Holiness Pope Francis to Participants in the International Symposium on
the Pastoral Care of the Street
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
I offer you a warm welcome at the conclusion of the International Symposium on
the Pastoral Care of the Street, organized by the Pontifical Council for the
Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. I thank Cardinal Vegliò
for his kind words, and in a particular way I thank him and his staff for their
work in this sector. These days of study and reflection have sought to
prepare an action plan in response to the phenomenon of children and women –
and their families – who spend their lives for the most part on the
street. I greatly appreciate your commitment to care for and promote the
dignity of these women and children, and I encourage you to persevere in your
work with confidence and apostolic zeal.
The often sad realities which you encounter are the result of indifference,
poverty, family and social violence, and human trafficking. They involve
the pain of marital separations and the birth of children out of wedlock,
frequently doomed to a life of “vagrancy”. Street children and street
women are not numbers, or “packets” to be traded; they are human beings, each
with his or her own name and face, each with a God-given identity.
No child chooses to live on the streets. Sadly, even in our modern,
globalized world, any number of children continue to be robbed of their
childhood, their rights and their future. Lack of legal protection and
adequate structures only aggravates their state of deprivation: they have no
real family or access to education or health care. Every child abandoned
or forced to live on the streets, at the mercy of criminal organizations, is a
cry rising up to God, who created man and woman in his own image. It is
an indictment of a social system which we have criticized for decades, but
which we find hard to change in conformity with criteria of justice.
It is troubling to see the increasing number of young girls and women forced to
earn a living on the street by selling their own bodies, victims of
exploitation by criminal organizations and at times by parents and family
members. This is a shameful reality in our societies, which boast of
being modern and possessed of high levels of culture and development.
Widespread corruption and unrestrained greed are robbing the innocent and the
vulnerable of the possibility of a dignified life, abetting the crime of
trafficking and other injustices which they have to endure. No one can
remain unmoved before the pressing need to safeguard the dignity of women,
threatened by cultural and economic factors!
I ask you, please: do not be disheartened by the difficulties and the
challenges which you encounter in your dedicated work, nourished as it is by
your faith in Christ, who showed, even to death on the cross, the preferential
love of God our Father for the weak and the outcast. The Church cannot
remain silent, nor can her institutions turn a blind eye to the baneful reality
of street children and street women. The Christian community in the
various countries needs to be involved at all levels in working to eliminate
everything which forces a child or a woman to live on the street or to earn a
livelihood on the street. We can never refrain from bringing to all, and
especially to the most vulnerable and underprivileged, the goodness and the
tenderness of God our merciful Father. Mercy is the supreme act by which
God comes to meet us; it is the way which opens our hearts to the hope of an
everlasting love.
Dear brothers and sisters, I offer prayerful good wishes for the fruitfulness
of your efforts, in your various countries, to offer pastoral and spiritual
care, and liberation, to those who are most frail and exploited; I likewise
pray for the fruitfulness of your mission to advance and protect their
personhood and dignity. I entrust you and your service to Mary, Mother of
Mercy. May the sweetness of her gaze accompany the efforts and the firm
purpose of all those who care for street children and street women. Upon
each of you I cordially invoke the Lord’s blessing.
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