"The Mediterranean is Europe's largest cemetery," and the countries of the Old Continent must each decide how many migrants they can accept. This is one of the most powerful statements on migrants made by Pope Francis this evening during an interview on the TV program "Che tempo che fa," citing Italy and Spain as positive examples.
And then he added: "What is being done with migrants is criminal. In Libya there are veritable concentration camps. Migrants must always be welcomed, supported, promoted and integrated, but we, along with the media, watch everything, it's a tragedy, then we stop watching, but it's not enough to see, we need to hear, touch.".
Pope Francis: War and arms sales are the world's top priorities.
"Wars are at the top of the list of universal categories right now, people are second. Think about Yemen, for example. It's a clear example of how long Yemen has been at war, and no solution has been found for at least seven years, if not ten."
"Other low categories are children, migrants, the poor, people who don't have enough to eat, these don't count.", he continued. "In the universal imagination - Francesco said again "What matters is the war, the sale of weapons. A year without weapons would provide food and education for the whole world, but that's secondary. We think about wars, and we're used to that. It's harsh, but it's the truth." "What's more important today?" the Pope reiterated "War: ideological war, war of power, trade war. And lots of weapons factories!"
Pope: Poor, hungry migrants do not matter, but war does
"We think about wars and weapons, while people take a back seat," "I don't want to sound tragic, but what's important today is war: economic, commercial, or otherwise"; "migrants, the poor, and the hungry don't matter."
You can only look down on someone by helping them get up.
"A man can only look down on another when he helps him up.", said Pope Francis. "In society," he observed, "we see how often we look down on others to dominate them, to subjugate them. Just think of those female employees who have to pay with their bodies for their job stability because their boss looks down on them to dominate them. It's an everyday thing.".
"I can only look down on that other one to make him stand up - the Pontiff reiterated -, a noble gesture, 'get up, brother, get up, sister.' Another look down is never permissible, because it is a look of domination."
Praying is what a child does when he calls for mommy and daddy.
"Praying is what a child does when he feels helpless. Dad, Mom: this is the first cry of prayer." The Pontiff then observed: "Praying means looking at one's own limits, needs, and sins. For us Christians, praying is meeting Dad. I didn't invent this word; we say Dad, not Father.
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If you say "Dad" to God, it means you're doing well. In their psychological development, children go through what's called the "why" age: they wake up, they see life, and they don't understand. But if we look closely, the child doesn't wait for the Pope's answer; he immediately asks another question. What the child wants is for the Pope's gaze to be upon him, and this gives him security. Prayer is a bit of all of this.
Parents should be almost complicit
The key to the relationship between parents and children is closeness. Pope Francis said this in an interview with Fabio Fazio on "Che tempo che fa" (Rai3). "I come to visit parents and ask them: do you play with your children? Sometimes I hear painful responses, 'But father, when I leave home for work they sleep, and when I come back they sleep': it's a cruel society that distances itself from children. Play with your children, and don't be afraid of them, of the things they say, or even, when a child is older, a teenager, be close, talk to them like a father, like a mother, be close. Parents who aren't close to their children, to stay calm, 'grab the car key,' don't do any good. Parents need to be almost complicit with their children, that complicity that allows fathers and children to grow up together."
"I'm not one to tolerate things."
"I wouldn't be honest if I said I endure a lot. No, I endure like everyone else, and I'm not alone: I have many people who help me. The bishops, the entire Church. I'm not a weightlifting champion, I endure like everyone else."
The Pope on Fazio mentions the employees who pay for their work with their bodies
"In society, we see how often we look down on others to dominate them, to subjugate them, and not to help them get back up. Just think—a sad but everyday story—of those employees who have to pay with their own bodies for job stability, because their boss looks down on them but to dominate them, an everyday example. Instead, only this gesture is permissible for this purpose," the Pope said, miming a person bowing to pick up someone who has fallen, "at the risk of falling myself: but it is a noble gesture, get up, brothers, get up, sister; any other look is not permissible because it would be domineering."
A sense of humor is medicine, it does a lot of good
"A sense of humor is medicine" and "it makes you put things into perspective, it makes you joyful, it does so much good." Pope Francis said this during a guest appearance on Rai3's "Che Tempo Che Fa," emphasizing that for "40 years" he has been reciting St. Thomas More's prayer for good humor, which concludes with these words: "Give me, O Lord, a sense of humor, grant me the grace to understand a joke, so that I may experience a little joy in life and share it with others."
The Pope to Fazio: There's rot beneath clericalism
"I have tried to point the Church's path toward the future, a Church on pilgrimage, and today the Church's greatest evil is spiritual worldliness, a worldly Church." "A great theologian, Henri de Lubac, said that worldliness is the worst evil that can happen, even worse than libertine popes; we know the history," Bergoglio said. "This spiritual worldliness within the Church breeds something ugly: clericalism, a perversion of the Church, the clericalism that breeds rigidity, and beneath every type of rigidity there is always decay."
The Pope, I'm not that holy, I need human relationships
"I'm not a saint, I need human relationships, that's why I went to live in Santa Marta," Pope Francis said on Che tempo che fa. "I need friends, I have them: they're few but true," he added.
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