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IN-DEPHT STUDY |
| 6 JANUARY – MISSIONARY CHILDHOOD
DAY |
| THE POPE A FRIEND OF CHILDREN |
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 “Childhood
in a precious but vulnerable treasure of the human family. I think
of the wars, the poverty, the exploitation and all sorts of abuse
of which they are victims” John Paul II is a great friend of
children all over the world and of each of them.
He never tires in fact of urging the world of adults, governments,
international organisations “not to forget the suffering of
children, from those who suffer from hunger and violence to those
who are victims of despicable forms of exploitation, to the many little
ones whoa re even denied the right to be born” (Jubilee of Children
2000).
His entire pontificate is marked by the thread of a discourse to children
which have always been the object of his paternal gaze, his affectionate
caresses, his embraces, his smiles.
Children are the heart of the family, its life’s beat and parents
must respect children help them to grow and develop that project of
life planned for them by God’s love.
Examples and companions, parents must be for their children the first
teachers of Christian life: “Listen to children. Faith is born
from listening to the Word of God. Listening is an attitude which,
like every other attitude, is learned first of all in the family.
Those who are listened to are able to listen and those who are loved
are able to love” (the family must listen to children –
1996)
But the threatened future of many children, millions and millions
all over the world, is of great concern to the Pope who said in his
Message for World Peace Day 1995: “Too many of the world’s
children are not in peace, they have never known peace, whereas peace
is their right and it is our duty. Many courageous children have been
agents of peace, defending the rights of their peers exploited or
abused”.
Through the years his denouncing has become louder and stronger to
those who seem not to listen: “the cries of millions of children
condemned to die of hunger of poverty connected disease has become
more critical and it challenges everyone” the Pope affirmed
during 2003 recalling the Gospel’s warning to those who “are
the cause of scandal to one of these little ones”. |
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