Apostolic Trip. Young People and Children as Protagonists

“Your faces, your questions and your lives are important for the Church and we need to give them the importance they deserve. We must also have the courage of the many young people of this land who were not afraid to love and risk their lives for Jesus.” Yesterday, Pope Francis addressed these words to young people during the Angelus  at the Plaza de Armas, in Lima. Then, he presented to the young Peruvian who are preparing for this year’s Synod the example of Saint Martin de Porres: “Nothing prevented that young man from achieving his dreams,” “Just as he was: a mulato. He had to face many hardships.” However, the Pope continued, “he knew how to trust. To trust in the Lord who loved him. Do you know why? Because the Lord had trusted him first; just as he trusts each of you.  […] Ask for help and advice from people you know can give good advice [...] Let them accompany you as you journey along the path of life.”

Not only young people were at the center of the Pope’s thoughts during his trip to South America: Francis, in his  speech  during the Marian celebration of the Virgen de la Puerta, in Trujillo, evoked the mothers and the grandmothers, “a true driving force for the life and the families of Peru. What would Peru be like, without its mothers and grandmothers! What—the Pope then asked— would our lives be like without them! Our love for Mary must help us to feel appreciation and gratitude for women, for our mothers and grandmothers, who are a bastion in the life in our cities. Almost always in silence, they carry life forward.”

Then, inviting the faithful to fight to combat a scourge that affects our American continent: the numerous cases where women are killed. And the many situations of violence that are kept quiet behind so many walls. I ask you to fight against this source of suffering—the Pope urged—by calling for legislation and a culture that repudiates every form of violence.”

Finally, during his trip to Peru, Francis spoke to the young of the Little Prince children’s home in Puerto Maldonado: You children—he said in his greeting—are “the greatest treasure that we have to care for. Forgive us those times when we adults have not cared for you.”