Day 29: Pope Francis and Children (Even the Unborn)

This morning Pope Francis gave a beautiful reflection at his Wednesday General Audience on children and how a society can be judged by the way it treats its children. "Children bring life, happiness, hope -- and even troubles, but that's life," he said. "Obviously they cause worries and sometimes problems, but a society with those worries and problems is always better than a society that is sad and gray because it has no children."  A society that has no children.  The media is fond of reporting that Pope Francis doesn't talk about the evils of abortion like his predecessors.  Apparently they don't listen to the entirety of his speeches.  If you search online this afternoon, you'll find all sorts of articles, even from Catholic sites, about how the Pope celebrated children in his speech this morning which is true.  What you won't find is how the last phrase of the line quoted above, "a society without children," goes hand in hand with another line from his speech that most of those articles I read this afternoon ignored.  Pope Francis said children are society's "great rejected ones, because they aren't even allowed to be born!"  So yes we have to pay attention to everything our Holy Father says, not only the parts we like.  The entire speech is still being translated for official publication because the pope went off the cuff at times, but you can read a summary in the only Catholic site that I found with the quote about abortion which is Catholic News Service, click here.  May we always cherish our children and welcome them as we welcome the Baby Jesus at Christmas, and may we always protect the most vulnerable, especially the unborn.  (Lent is the perfect time to do penance and make reparations for the sins our society has committed against children and the unborn and yes that includes the sins committed by our Church.)