NOVEMBER | For children who suffer

There are still millions of boys and girls who suffer and live in conditions very similar to slavery.

They aren’t numbers: they are human beings with names, with a face of their own, with an identity that God has given them.
Too often, we forget our responsibility and we close our eyes to the exploitation of these children who don’t have a right to play, to study, to dream. They don’t even enjoy the warmth of a family.

Each marginalized child, abandoned by his or her family, without schooling, without healthcare, is a cry! A cry that rises up to God and shames the system that we adults have built.
An abandoned child is our fault.

We can no longer allow them to feel alone and abandoned —they are entitled to an education and to feel the love of a family so they know that God does not forget them.
Let us pray for children who are suffering, especially for those who are homeless, orphans, and victims of war. May they be guaranteed access to education and may they have the opportunity to experience family affection.

“An abandoned child is our fault”

In The Pope Video for November, Francis makes a powerful appeal regarding the extreme conditions in which millions of children live throughout the world.

Each child has the right to play, to study, and to dream, and the Holy Father asks that we take responsibility and not forget that “they are human beings with names, with a face of their own, with an identity that God has given them”.

For the Pope, “an abandoned child is our fault”: this is why he insists that they must “be guaranteed access to education and the opportunity to experience family affection.”

November has arrived, and with it a new Pope Video that shares the prayer intention that the pontiff is entrusting to the entire Catholic Church through the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. This month, Francis’ words focus on the smallest among us, children who are forgotten, who daily suffer rejection, indigence, poverty, and every kind of conflict, without a real chance for growth and development and without access to basic rights. These are “conditions very similar to slavery,” the Pope laments, referring to the millions of children who suffer these conditions, due to a “system that we adults have built.”

The message of The Pope Video cries out for the fundamental rights of children and asks us to pray that they may have access to basic services and the warmth and love of a family: “We can no longer allow them to feel alone and abandoned —they are entitled to an education and to feel the love of a family so they know that God does not forget them”.

They aren’t numbers; they are human beings

To put this month’s message in context, all we have to do is look at some global reference points. UNICEF emphasizes that 1 billion children live in multidimensional poverty (without access to education, health care, shelter, food, sanitation, or water) and estimates that 153 million children are orphans.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN said in a recent letter that, “at the end of last year, more than 450 million children – or one in six – were living in a conflict zone, the highest number in 20 years. A record 36.5 million children were displaced from their homes as a result of conflict, violence and other crises.”

Pope Francis emphasizes that “they aren’t numbers: they are human beings with names, with a face of their own, with an identity that God has given them,” and as such, we adults cannot close our eyes to their plight. For the Holy Father, “an abandoned child is our fault,” and we cannot allow them to feel alone.