Pope Francis Talks to Journalists on His Way to Rio

Source: News.Va

Pope Francis engaged in a brief chat with journalists while in flight from Rome to Rio.

The Holy Father was en route to World Youth Day 2013, which is being held in Rio de Janeiro this week. 

He brought up several things in his conversation. One of them is that the economic problems around the world leave many young people without the opportunity to find jobs.

This is at a period in their lives when their energies and passions are highest. That they can’t use them to make a living for themselves is both a waste for society as a whole and a danger to it. 

My grandmother used to say “idle hands are the devil’s playground.” I apply that saying to this problem of global unemployment of such a great number of vigorous young people with the realization that all this energy and passion can become explosive and destructive if it’s not channeled properly.

That makes the job of families and the Church even more important. Our basic values are what drive our actions. Hopefully, there are enough young people in today’s world with the right values to make something positive and productive of this enforced idleness due to unemployment. 

Another comment that the Holy Father made that resonates with me is that he balanced statement that the young are the future with a statement that the elderly are also the future as they are the repository of the accumulated wisdom of having experienced life and living. I am so glad the Holy Father said this. It is a truth that we often lose in our focus on the next new thing, 

Every person, at every stage of life, not only has intrinsic value from God, they have gifts that are specific to their stage of life to give to society at large. Those who fail in this, such as destructive or violent people, are failing to be what God intended them to be when He created them. 

When we fail to honor and value the wisdom of our elderly people, we are depriving ourselves of needful help and stability in our lives and our society. 

From New.Va:

Young people, the Holy Father said, “belong to a family, to a country, to a culture and a faith.” They represent the future of a people “because they have the energy;” but Pope Francis added, “the future is also the elderly because they are the custodians of the ‘wisdom of life’, the history, the home and the family.” A people has no future – he continued – if it goes ahead without the strength of its youth and the elderly.
The Pope reflected on the global economic crisis and the possibility that young people may find themselves out of work. “We have the risk of having a generation that did not have work” said the Pope. And from work he noted, one derives “the dignity of the person” – “from earning his bread.”
“Young people today are in crisis,” he said, “and we are used to this disposable culture: it happens all too often to the elderly.” But young jobless people are also getting caught up in this disposable culture. What we need today he said, is a “culture of inclusion, a culture of encounter.” And this invitation to reporters: “I ask you to help me”- concluded the Pope – and work for the good of the society of young people and the elderly.”