ROME (AP) – Pope Francis urged governments on Monday to use the coronavirus crisis as a revolutionary opportunity to create a world that is more economical and environmentally friendly – and where basic health care is guaranteed for all.
Francis made the claim in his annual foreign policy address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, a post that was postponed for two weeks after suffering from sciatica nerve pain that made it difficult to stand and walk.
Francis urged the governments represented at the Abstol Palace to contribute to global campaigns to vaccinate the poor and use the pandemic to make what he said a sick economic model that takes advantage of the poor and on Earth.
“There needs to be a new kind of Copernican revolution that puts the economy at the service of men and women, not the other way around,” he said, referring to the 16th-century paradigm shift that said the sun the center of the hemisphere, not the Earth.
He said that a new economy is so revolutionary “one that gives life not death, one that is inclusive and non-exclusive, human and non-dehumanizing, one that cares for the environment and does not damage it. “
Francis has often called on the world to use the pandemic as an opportunity to rethink a global economy that values people and the planet over profits, and one where brutality and intimacy drive human relations rather than conflict and division.
Francis, 84, addressed these issues in his lengthy speech, which was delivered in a larger-than-usual reception hall to give the 88 ambassadors in attendance a greater social distance. In the end, Francis invited each one but said he would shake their hands and persuaded them to keep their pace. Francis has been vaccinated against the virus.
In his speech, he called for universal health care for all. He noted that those on the fringes of society and those working in the informal economy have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic, with few social networks surviving .
“Led by despair, many have sought other forms of income and risk through illegal or forced labor, prostitution and various criminal activities, including human trafficking,” Francis said. warning.
He said that children have suffered an “educational disaster” with schools closed, women have suffered domestic abuse, believers have been removed from common worship and the nation -all human is constrained by close human contact.
“Along with vaccines, there is brutality and hope, as it were, the medicine we need in today’s world,” he said.
In addition to the pandemic, Francis listed other areas of particular concern, starting with the cup in Myanmar, which Francis visited in 2017. He called on political leaders to be “promptly released as a token of earnest encouragement aimed at the good of the country. “
He called for the end of the war in Syria, noting that 2021 marks its 10th anniversary, and urging the international community to “deal to the causes of the conflict with honesty and confidence and to seek solutions. “He praised the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons and the extension of the START treaty between the US and Russia.
He also called for the extension of disarmament efforts to conventional and chemical weapons.