Pope Francis on Monday hosted an international summit on the rights of the child, lamenting the millions who daily endure war, poverty, abuse, exploitation, depression and a lack of hope for the future.
The Feb. 3 summit, held in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace and titled, “Love them and protect them,” featured keynote speeches by Pope Francis and Vatican Secretary of State Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, as well as from the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, British Archbishop Paul Gallagher, among others.
It drew high-level participants from across the world, including former US Vice President and Nobel Peace Laureate Al Gore, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, and a slew of government representatives from Italy, Gambia, Indonesia, Egypt, and South Africa, as well as representatives of institutions such as the World Food Program, FIFA, Interpol and Mary’s Meals.
In an opening address, the pope, lamented that throughout the world, children’s rights “are daily trampled upon and ignored.”
He noted that many children experience poverty, war, a lack of access to healthcare and education, as well as injustice and exploitation, and that even in wealthier countries, “little ones are not infrequently vulnerable and suffer from problems that we cannot underestimate.”
Children across the world have to deal with various difficulties, he said, and those in developed nations often experience anxiety and depression, and many are “drawn to forms of aggression or self-harm.”
“Moreover, a culture of efficiency looks upon childhood itself, like old age, as a ‘periphery’ of existence,” the pope said, and noted that many young people struggle to find hope in themselves and their circumstances, calling this “sad and troubling.”
“What we have tragically seen almost every day in recent times, namely children dying beneath bombs, sacrificed to the idols of power, ideology, and nationalistic interests, is unacceptable,” he said, saying, “nothing is worth the life of a child.”
Pope Francis stressed that “To kill children is to deny the future,” and lamented that where war is absent, other problems such as drug and gang related violence are prevalent, as well as a destructive “pathological individualism.”
He voiced sadness that many children are mistreated and killed by those who ought to be protecting them, while others die as migrants at sea or in the desert in hopes of obtaining a better life and future, or they end up exploited.
“All these situations are different, but they raise the same question: How is it possible that a child’s life should end like this?” he said, calling all of these situations “unacceptable.”
Francis cautioned against “becoming inured to this reality,” saying, “a childhood denied is a silent scream condemning the wrongness of the economic system, the criminal nature of wars, the lack of adequate medical care and schooling.”
He called the situation a “global moral crisis” and urged summit participants to not let these situations “become the new normal.”
The pope condemned what he said was a general lack of mercy and compassion before the plight children face, noting that 40 million children throughout the world have been displaced by conflict, while around 100 million are homeless and others endure slavery in the forms of trafficking, child labor, abuse and compulsory marriages.
There are also millions of migrant children, including many who are alone, he said, noting that a significant number of children “live in limbo” because they were not registered at birth. Some 150 million children are in this situation, he said, meaning they are essentially “invisible” and lack education and healthcare.
“We can think of the young Rohingya children, who often struggle to get registered, or the ‘undocumented’ children at the border of the United States,” he said.
These children, he said, are “those first victims of that exodus of despair and hope made by the thousands of people coming from the South towards the United States of America, and many others.”
This situation is nothing new, he said, pointing to the fact that many elderly people have experienced similar difficulties and tragedies during times of wars and conflicts of the past.
Hearing stories of past violence, injustice and exploitation, he said, “serves to strengthen our ‘no’ to war, to the throwaway culture of waste and profit, in which everything is bought and sold without respect or care for life, especially when that life is small and defenseless.”
Francis also reiterated his condemnation of the practice of abortion, saying, “In the name of this throwaway mentality, in which the human being becomes all-powerful, unborn life is sacrificed through the murderous practice of abortion.”
“Abortion suppresses the life of children and cuts off the source of hope for the whole of society,” he said.
He closed urging participants to make the most of the summit and voiced hope that the discussion would “help to build a better world for children, and consequently for everyone!”
“For me, it is a source of hope that we are all here together, to put children, their rights, their dreams, and their demand for a future at the center of our concern,” he said.
Participants spoke in seven different panels throughout the day, dedicated to themes such as the rights of the child, including their right to resources, education, food, healthcare, and family, as well as their right to leisure and to live free from violence.
Pope Francis, who sat in various panels throughout the daylong summit, in closing remarks voiced gratitude to participants for their contributions, saying the halls of the apostolic palace had become an “observatory open to the reality of childhood throughout the world.”
Childhood, he said, is “often wounded, exploited and denied.”
Participants’ presence, experience and compassion, he said, “have given life to an observatory and above all a ‘laboratory’: in various themed groups you have developed proposals for the protection of children’s rights, considering them not as numbers but as faces.”
“All this gives glory to God, and we entrust it to Him, so that His Holy Spirit may make it fertile and fruitful,” he said, and announced his intention to write a document, an apostolic letter or exhortation, dedicated to children.
With this document, he said, he hopes “to give continuity to this commitment (to children) and to promote it throughout the Church.”
