Pope Francis, international leaders discuss children’s rights at Vatican

Vatican City, Feb 3, 2025 / 09:13 am (CNA).

Pope Francis and leaders from around the world are meeting at the Vatican this week to discuss the rights of children, including the smallest and most defenseless children — the unborn.

The pontiff opened the two-day summit on Feb. 3 with a reflection on the many ways children are oppressed today, including living through war, poverty, as undocumented migrants, and without access to adequate food, education, and health care.

In his address to prominent leaders in the private and public sectors, he also highlighted how children are harmed through abortion, promoted by a “throwaway culture of waste and profit, in which everything is bought and sold without respect or care for life, especially when that life is small and defenseless.”

“In the name of this throwaway mentality, in which the human being becomes all-powerful, unborn life is sacrificed through the murderous practice of abortion,” Francis said. “Abortion suppresses the life of children and cuts off the source of hope for the whole of society.”

The Feb. 3-4 summit, titled “Love Them and Protect Them,” includes panels on the child’s right to resources, to education, to food and health care, to family, to free time, and to live free from violence.

Summit speakers include Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, president of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and author and Holocaust survivor Edith Bruck.

Cardinal Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for relations with states, and other Vatican officials are chairing the panels.

Speaking in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, Pope Francis also drew attention Monday to his concern that young people, themselves a sign of hope, are struggling to find hope in today’s world.

“Increasingly, those who have their whole life ahead of them are unable to approach it with optimism and confidence,” he said, pointing out the damage of “pathological individualism” in developed countries.

Pope Francis also spoke about the growing phenomenon in immigration of unaccompanied minors — including “the ‘indocumentados’ [undocumented] children at the border of the United States, those first victims of that exodus of despair and hope made by the thousands of people coming from the south toward the United States of America, and many others.”

Before the start of the summit on Monday, Pope Francis met briefly with a group of children from different countries who gave him a letter saying “together with you we want to cleanse the world of bad things, color it with friendship and respect, and help you build a beautiful future for everyone!”

The pontiff will also deliver the summit’s closing remarks on the afternoon of Feb. 4.