UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
* Pope Francis’ well scripted trip to the Philippines began and ended with unscripted injections of reality about street children. The trip began with shocking revelations that young street children were being rounded up by Manila officials and held in horrible conditions to clear the streets for Pope Francis’ visit, as reported by the UK Daily Mail here: [Daily Mail]
* The pope’s last full day in the Philippines began with an emotional youth gathering where he faced a tough question from one of the street children.
* Pope Francis concluded his trip in open-air Mass. In his homily, the pope took another swipe at the Philippines’ government’s new program to make effective family planning options accessible to, and affordable by, the countries poor, saying the family was under threat from “insidious attacks and programs contrary to all that we hold true and sacred.”
* Children can be seen living on the streets of the Philippine capital, as they often do in many poor Asian, Latin American and African countries, surviving by begging and picking through garbage in vast dumps.The United Nations reportedly says 1.2 million children live on the streets in the Philippines. According to the Child Protection Network Foundation, 35 percent of Filipino children were living in poverty in 2009, the last year such data was available. Nearly one third of Filipinos live in slums
* At an emotional youth gathering at a Catholic university in Manila this morning (1/18/15), the pope had to face a question posed by a 12-year-old girl who had been abandoned. “Many children are abandoned by their parents. Many of them became victims and bad things have happened to them, like drug addiction and prostitution. Why does God allow this to happen, even if the children are not at fault? Why is it that only a few people help us?” the girl, Glyzelle Iris Palomar, asked him. The girl, who was rescued and found shelter in a Church-run community, broke down in tears and could not finish her prepared welcome. The pope hugged her and later put aside most of his own prepared speech to respond. “Why do children suffer?” the pope reportedly replied, but really had no apt answer.(My emphasis)
* Nevertheless, Pope Francis lobbied a few hours later in his homily for an end to the government’s long overdue help to poor couples who want to plan their families. Is he serious?
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