• Pope: it is useless to go to the Moon if you are not brothers on Earth
  • Pope Francis: "Without work, families cannot go on"
  • The Pope to young people: "Do not leave the elderly alone, they are your roots"

Share

August 19, 2020 "It would be sad if the richest are given priority in the Covid-19 vaccine. It would be sad if this vaccine became the property of such or such a nation, it would not be universal for everyone". These are the words of Pope Francis at the general audience via streaming. "And what a scandal it would be if all the economic assistance we are seeing - most of it with public money - were concentrated on redeeming industries that do not contribute to the inclusion of the excluded, to the promotion of the least, to the common good or to the care of creation" , added the Pontiff.

They are criteria for choosing which industries will be: helping those that contribute to the inclusion of the excluded, to the promotion of the least, to the common good and to the care of creation. Four criteria ", explained Francesco.

"The pandemic has increased inequalities and discrimination"
"The pandemic has exposed the plight of the poor and the great inequality that reigns in the world. And the virus, while it makes no exceptions among people, has found, in its path devastating, great inequalities and discrimination. And it has increased them! " Pope Francis stressed. "The response to the pandemic is therefore twofold. On the one hand, it is essential to find the cure for a small but terrible virus, which is bringing the whole world to its knees. On the other hand, we must cure a great virus, that of 'social injustice, inequality of opportunity, marginalization and the lack of protection of the weakest, ”Bergoglio said.

"In this double healing response, there is a choice that, according to the Gospel, cannot be missing: it is the preferential option for the poor. It is not a political, ideological, party option, no: the first is at the center of the Gospel. it was Jesus who did it, being rich he made himself poor to enrich us, he made himself one of us for this reason at the center of the Gospel there is this option ".

"We are called to act now, to heal the epidemics caused by small invisible viruses, and to heal those caused by large and visible social injustices", the Pontiff underlined at the end of the audience, in which he put the Christian at the center of the action the preferential option for the poor. "I propose that this be done starting from the love of God, placing the peripheries at the center and the last ones in the first place. Starting from this love, anchored in hope and founded in faith, a healthier world will be possible", he added. .