This Saturday (13th), Pope Francis carried out a profound reflection on the value of life, on the protection of the planet and also on the need to put an end to the logic of destructive investments, such as, for example, the manufacturing of weapons.
The message was released during an audience with the Italian Adult Catholic Scout Movement (MASCI), which turns 70 this year, celebrated with the motto “More life to life” and with three projects that “touch on important values” .
They are: the donation of a thermal bed to the Reception and First Aid Center in Lampedusa; the creation of a nautical carpentry laboratory in Zambia; and the planting of a forest in Argenta, in Emilia-Romagna.
“In this time of dramatic decline in birth rate, men seem to have lost the taste for generating and taking care of others, and perhaps even the taste for living. The cradle donated to Lampedusa recalls the love for life that was born from it ” observed the Pope.
“The joy of a child being born, the commitment to ensure that he grows up well, the anticipation and hope of what he can become”, he added.
According to the Pontiff, «the nativity scene speaks to us of family, of a welcoming and safe nest for the little ones, of a community founded on the gratuitousness of love, and also of attention to life in every phase, especially as the years pass by or difficulties of life’s journey make the person more vulnerable and needy.”
For the Argentinian, the donation to the First Aid and Reception Center on the Sicilian island is therefore significant: “The love of life is always open and universal, desirous of the good of all, regardless of origin or any other condition”.
“Today there is a lot of talk, perhaps too much, about the production of weapons to wage war and the investments that provide most of the revenue. It is the weapons factories that invest to destroy; winning through destruction,” he said.
However, the Argentine underlined that “our vocation takes us back to the fundamental vocation of man to transform the gifts of God not into means of death, but into instruments of good, in the common commitment to building a just and peaceful society , where everyone is given the possibility of a dignified life.”
According to the leader of the Catholic Church it is about “the dignity of life, working for the dignity of life”.
Finally, he underlined that the forest, Masci’s third project, conceived in memory of Dom Giovanni Minzoni, is the starting point to urge «the responsibility of the common home, which the Creator has entrusted into our hands, and to orient our thoughts towards an integral ecological vision”.
“Respect, love and direct contact with nature are peculiar characteristics of the Scout Movement, since its origins. And they are values that we need so much today, when we find ourselves increasingly helpless in the face of the consequences of irresponsible behavior and short-term exploration of the planet,” he stressed.
Finally, he recalled the “prisoners of lifestyles” and those who have “equally selfish behaviors, deaf to any appeal to common sense” and who “are tragically self-destructive”, as well as “behaviors insensitive to the cry of a wounded earth, but also the voice of many brothers and sisters unjustly marginalized and excluded from a fair distribution of goods”.
Source: Terra
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