Pope Francis will write an apostolic exhortation dedicated to children

Pope Francis announced Monday that he will write an apostolic exhortation dedicated to children “to give continuity” to their commitment to a safer and more equitable future world for the little ones.

“I intend to prepare a letter or an apostolic exhortation dedicated to children,” said the pontiff in his speech of conclusion of the summit on the rights of children held in the Vatican.

At the summit held in the Vatican, entitled “Let’s love them and protect them”, they took the word different renowned personalities to address the importance of children’s rights.

Among the participants highlighted Queen Rania de Jordan; the magnet Ahmed al Tayeb, from the mosque of Al Azhar in Egypt; the economist Mario Draghi; the Argentine philosopher Miguel Benasayag; Italian life senator Liliana Segre, survivor of the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz; Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014; and Al Gore, former president of the United States.

Two interventions of the Pope

Pope Francis had an outstanding participation in the summit, with two significant interventions. In his initial speech, which began the more than 30 presentations of the event, the pontiff addressed various crucial issues related to children’s rights.

Among them, he highlighted the situation of undocumented minors on the border of the United States, strongly condemned the cruelty of war and denounced abortion as a practice that threatens life.

In his second intervention, the Holy Father expressed his gratitude for this meeting, qualifying this event as “an open observatory on the reality of childhood in the world.”

“They have given life to an observatory and especially a ‘laboratory’ (…) have prepared proposals for the protection of children’s rights, considering them not as numbers, but as faces,” he added.

“All this gives glory to God, we already trust it, so that his Holy Spirit makes him fructify and fertilize,” said the pontiff.

“Children observe us”

The Pontiff started his second speech reading some passages from a letter given to him a group of children from Catholic schools in Rome, the Indonesian community and the peace schools of the community of the community of Sant’Egidio and of the Foundation Help along with some drawings.

“Dear Pope Francis, we wrote to him on behalf of the children throughout the earth,” said the letter he read during his speech.

“We want to thank you because you worry about us and our future, you love us and protect us. Too many children suffer from hunger, for war, for the different color of the skin, for environmental disasters, ”the Pope read.

“We would like a more fair world, without divisions between the peoples, between rich and poor, between young and old, a world also cleaner, where pollution does not destroy forests, dirty the sea and mate so many animals, we have realized that it is more important to save the earth than to have so much money, “concluded the letter read by the Pontiff.