Pope Francis tells people’s movements: be sowers of change
“Even as the quality of available water is constantly diminishing, in some places there is a growing tendency, despite its scarcity, to privatize this resource, turning it into a commodity subject to the laws of the market. Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity.” — Pope Francis, 2015
Pope Francis addressed 5,000 participants in the Third World Meeting of Popular Movements in Rome on November 5, 2016. The Holy See Press Office reported that the pope “reminded the members of the movements that inequity is at the root of all social ills and warned them against the fear, fomented by tyranny, that leads us to consider the other as an enemy and to raise walls, exhorting them finally to engage in dialogue with political groups and not to let themselves be confined.”
In an excerpt from the summary of the Pope’s discourse, Francis told the gathering: “In our last meeting, in Bolivia [in 2015] … we listed various indispensable tasks for journeying towards a human alternative faced with the globalization of indifference. 1) Place the economy at the service of the people; 2) to build peace and justice; and 3) to defend Mother Earth. That day … at the conclusion, the ten points of Santa Cruz de la Sierra were read: dignified work for those who are excluded from the job market; land for peasant farmers and indigenous populations; dwellings for homeless families; urban integration for working-class neighborhoods; elimination of discrimination, violence against women and new forms of slavery; the end of all wars, organized crime and repression; freedom of expression and democratic communication; and science and technology at the service of the people. We have also heard how you are engaged in embracing a project for life that rejects consumerism and recovers solidarity, love between us and respect for nature as essential values.”
See full summary of Bulletin issued by the Holy See Press Office at: press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/11/05/161105e.html
