Pope Francis surprised people at the Vancouver-based annual TED Conference this week, posting his first TED Talk in front of them.
Affirming that the world’s future is not in the hands of politicians or big companies but mostly “in the hands of those people who recognize the other as a ‘you’ and themselves as part of an ‘us’”, his talk offered three messages.
The first message is about our connections with others.
Francis said he liked the conference title “The Future You”, explaining “while looking at tomorrow, it invites us to open a dialogue today.”
He said it enables us to look at the future through a ‘you’…The future is made of you’s…because life flows through our relations with others”.
He said he often asks himself “why them and not me” when he sees people less fortunate.
His second TED message is about overcoming a culture that puts products rather than people first.
This will involve “educating people to a true solidarity”, where people are put back in the centre of our world, rather than techno-economic systems.
Francis used St Mother Teresa of Kolkata and the Parable of the Good Sanaritan to illustrate his point.
His third message is about what he calls a “revolution of tenderness”.
Calling on the world’s leaders to “act humbly”, he said “The more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly,” he advises.
“You will end up hurting yourself and those around you, if you don’t connect your power with humility and tenderness.”
Francis’s talk was kept as a surprise for those at the conference, who were only aware a “world figure” would be speaking to them.
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