Global – Pope Francis requests prayer and action for those “living on the margins of society”
- Pope Francis asks, “How is it that we allow the ‘throwaway culture,’ in which millions of men and women are worth nothing compared to economic godos, to dominate our lives?”
- “Please,” the Pope implores, “let’s stop making invisible those who are on the margins of society, whether it’s due to poverty, addictions, mental illness or disability.”
“How could we have reached this level of indifference?” This is the question Pope Francis asks in The Pope Video for the month of September in which he asks us to pray “for people living on the margins” of society through the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. “A homeless person who dies on the street will never appear among the top stories of search engines or newscasts,” the Holy Father notes at the beginning of the prayer intention he shares with the Universal Church this month.
Those forgotten by the press
It is specifically for them, those forgotten by the press, that this month’s video seeks to draw attention to. The images accompanying Pope Francis’s words show homeless people – alone or in small groups, at times almost stepped on by passersby – on the sidewalks of Canada, the United States, Kenya, Cameroon and India; street children who spend their day washing the windshields of cars stopped at stoplights in San Salvador; people with different disabilities in Spain, the Philippines and Central America; shantytowns near skyscrapers in Vancouver, and near buildings in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.
Related Posts:
The Central American Province of the Society of Jesus marks the first anniversary of the Nicaraguan government's confiscation of the Central American University, condemning the violation of education rights and academic freedom. They call for an end to repression, the release of political prisoners, and a return to dialogue and justice.
Stan Swamy Day in Viragalur was a moving tribute to a man who devoted his life to justice and the upliftment of the marginalized.
The worldwide network of Jesuit organisations, Xavier Network, involved in responding to humanitarian crises around the world, expressed shock at the April 2 killing of 7 aid workers delivering essential food aid. "We cannot be silent." Xavier Network joined the global Jesuits' call for "an immediate ceasefire, for negotiations and for the beginning of a process that will bring freedom, liberty and justice for all in the Middle East, the only road to true peace."
On the memorial day of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, J. Baptiste, a Jesuit genocide survivor from Rwanda, shared his story of the tragic event. On behalf of fellow Rwandans, he concluded with a prayer: "My prayer today is to find the last remains of the victims…, then [this] commemoration will mean something different. Only then will our wounds heal and the ongoing reconciliation process move faster."
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, the Vatican published a new document, Dignitas Infinita, which condemns, among other grave violations, emerging forms of digital violence against human dignity, such as Cyberbullying, Online Hate Speech, Social Exclusion, Economic Exploitation, Digital Surveillance, Body Shaming, and Microaggressions.
"Conflicts in Africa in the Context of the Exploitation of Natural and Mining Resources" was the theme of a seminar in Accra, Ghana. Participants in the seminar convened by the Symposium of the Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) called for the end of the ruthless depletion of natural resources by multinational corporations and foreign powers.
