“Good morning to all of you! They said…I have heard some strange things being said about you: that you are not “the kinds of saints I pray for” (he said this in reference to a comment Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki made about journalists on the papal flight when she greeted him Ed.). I am here among lions; well not really lions; at least not today…But thank you. I really don’t do interviews, because I don’t know, I can’t, that’s just the way it is…I find them a bit tiresome but I thank you for your company.
My first trip is to go and visit young people. But not young people who are excluded from their own lives: I hope to find them integrated into the social fabric, into society. Because by excluding young people we commit an injustice: we take away their sense of belonging. Young people do belong somewhere, they belong to a family, a country, a culture and a faith. So we must not isolate them, we should not exclude them from society. They really are a population’s future that is a fact. They are the future. But not only them: they have a future because they are strong, they are young, they will move forward.
But life’s other extreme, the elderly, are also a people’s future, because people have a future if they make the most of both strengths: the young move society forward with their strength and the elderly with their life’s wisdom. I often think we do our elderly an injustice. We leave them out as if they had nothing to offer and yet they have wisdom, the wisdom of life, historical, national and family wisdom. And we need that.
Young people are in the midst of a crisis and we are used to a culture of “discarding”. This happens a lot with the elderly but now it is happening with these unemployed young people as well. They adopt this discarding culture. We need to put a stop to this and promote a culture of inclusion. We need to make an effort to include everyone in society. This is part of the reason I wanted to pay this visit to young people. To young people in society. Thank you my dearest “kinds of saints I do not pray for” who are not really that lion-like…
I ask you to help me during this visit, for the sake of good, of society, of the young and especially of the elderly. I thank all of you. Like the prophet Daniel, I feel a bit sad because I’ve noticed the “lions” have proved not to be that fierce!”
So true.