Pope Francis has visited Cuba and the U.S. for the first time. Credited with helping to broker the renewal of diplomatic negotiations between the U.S. and Cuba, he has already offered his thoughts on power at an open mass in Havana:
Service is never ideological, for we don’t serve ideas, we serve people. Don’t neglect them for plans which can be seductive but are unconcerned about the face of the person beside you.
Pope Francis is known for being outspoken on global challenges. Here’s a reminder of some of his previous remarks.
The environment
1. “Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption to combat this warming, or at least the human causes that produce and accentuate it.”
2. “The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions.”
3. “The Earth is protesting for the wrong that we are doing to her, because of the irresponsible use and abuse of the goods that God has placed on her. We have grown up thinking that we were her owners and dominators, authorised to loot her. The violence that exists in the human heart, wounded by sin, is also manifest in the symptoms of illness that we see in the Earth, the water, the air and in living things.”
The economy, financial systems and inequality
4.
5. “Among our tasks as witnesses to the love of Christ is that of giving a voice to the cry of the poor, so that they are not abandoned to the laws of an economy that seems at times to treat people as mere consumers.”
6. “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”
7. “Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities.”
8. “I think so-called unrestrained [economic] liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded. We need great freedom, no discrimination, no demagoguery and a lot of love. We need rules of conduct and also, if necessary, direct intervention from the state to correct the more intolerable inequalities.”
9. “It is increasingly intolerable that financial markets are shaping the destiny of people rather than serving their needs, or that the few derive immense wealth from financial speculation while the many are deeply burdened by the consequences.”
Food security
10. “It is a well-known fact that current levels of production are sufficient, yet millions of people are still suffering and dying of starvation. This is truly scandalous.”
11. “Let us modify our relationship with natural resources, land use, consumption, and eliminate waste: thus shall we defeat hunger.”
Human rights
12. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
13. “Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed. The church cannot be herself without the woman and her role. The woman is essential for the church. Mary, a woman, is more important than the bishops.”
14. “We must support decisively the right to equal pay for equal work. Why should it be taken for granted that women must earn less than men? No! They have the same rights.”
Immigration
15. “We cannot allow the Mediterranean Sea to become a vast cemetery.”
16. “These our brothers and sisters seek to leave difficult situations in order to find a little serenity and peace, they seek a better place for themselves and for their families – but they found death. How many times do those who seek this not find understanding, do not find welcome, do not find solidarity?”
Science and technology
17. “The ‘big bang,’ that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the creative intervention of God, on the contrary it requires it”
18. “The internet offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.”
19. “The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity. A network not of wires but of people”
Author: José Santiago, Senior Associate, Public Engagement at the World Economic Forum.
Image: Pope Francis waves upon arriving to give the first mass of his visit to Cuba in Havana’s Revolution Square REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
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