The United Nations Secretary-General has told Pope Francis he is counting on the Catholic Church to work with the UN to promote a life of dignity for all.
In Rome, Ban Ki-moon hailed the personal commitment by Pope Francis to eradicating poverty and promoting sustainable development.
Mr Ban and heads of major UN agencies had been meeting for two days in Rome, and they had an audience with the Pontiff on May 9.
“Across the UN agenda, I see the need for calm, compassion, cooperation and courage,” Mr Ban said to Pope Francis.
“Your papacy embodies these principles and has inspired people in all regions and from all backgrounds, he added.
Mr Ban invited the Pope to visit UN Headquarters in New York.
“That would continue a tradition of papal visits – and be an opportunity for you to speak of your vision for our common future.”
In his speech to Mr Ban and UN officials, Pope Francis called for the United Nations to promote a “worldwide ethical mobilisation” of solidarity with the poor in a new spirit of generosity.
He said a more equal form of economic progress can be had through “the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the state, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society”.
Francis voiced a similar message to the World Economic Forum in January and in his apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel”.
The Pope also said charity and justice should be based on “an awareness of the dignity of each of our brothers and sisters, whose life is sacred and inviolable from conception to natural death”.
The UN must challenge injustice and oppose the “‘economy of exclusion’, the ‘throwaway culture’ and the ‘culture of death’ which nowadays sadly risk becoming passively accepted”, Francis added.
A few days before the audience, Vatican officials had faced a two-day grilling in Geneva by the UN committee against torture.
Some UN representatives had argued that child sexual abuse amounted to torture.
But the Pope did not mention the subject during the Rome audience, instead focusing on working for greater equality and the eradication of poverty.
Sources
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