Below please find
CNA’s full transcript of the Pope’s speech in Spanish, assisted
by the
simultaneous translation of Pope Francis’ official translator, Msgr. Mark
Miles:
Thank you very much
for the rosary you prayed for me. Thank you for your enthusiastic presence
here. I have something to say on the basis of all the questions asked by Lineth
and Manuel.
(In response to
Lineth’s questions):
Why do divisions,
wars and death occur? Fanaticism and divisions among young people? Why is there
that desire to destroy?
In the first page
of the Bible, after all those wonderful things that the Lord had done, a
brother kills another brother. The spirit of evil takes us to destruction. And
the spirit takes us to a lack of unity. It takes us to tribalism corruption and
drugs. It takes us to destruction out of fanaticism. How do we make it such
that fanatical idealism doesn’t rob us of a brother or sister. There is a word
that might seem uncomfortable to the ear but i don’t want to avoid it.
A man or a woman loses their
humanity when they forget how to pray. Because they feel powerful. Because they
don’t feel the need to ask the Lord for help, in the face of so many tragedies.
Life is full of difficulties. Are
there different ways of looking at difficulties? Does it stop you, or do you
regard them as as real opportunity? To all of you is open the choice. For me,
is this a path of destruction or an opportunity to overcome this difficulty for
me, my family, this country?
Young people: we don’t live in
heaven, we live on earth. And earth is full of difficulties and invitations
that will lead you astray to evil. But there is something all of you have. The
capacity to choose. Which path do you want to choose? Which of these two do I
want?
There are some other difficulties
you mention. And before that a question. Do you want to overcome challenges or
be overcome by them?
Are you like the sportsman who come
here (to the stadium). Or those who sold the tickets to others and put the
money in their pockets. You have to choose.
Tribalism. It can destroy. It can
mean having your hands hidden behind your backs. And have a stone in each hand
to throw to others. Tribalism can only be overcome with your ear, your heart,
and your hand.
(Ask yourselves): What is your
culture? Why are you like this? Why do your cousins have these customs? Do they
feel inferior or superior?
Once we’ve heard the response in our
ears than it passes to our hearts and then I extend my hand. If you don’t
dialogue with each other then you’re going to have division like a worm that
grows in society
Yesterday was pronounced as a day of
prayer and reconciliation. I want to invite you all today, to the young, to
invite Lineth and Manuel to come up now, and that we hold each other’s hands,
let’s hold hands together. Let’s stand up as a sign against tribalism. We are
all a nation, that’s how our hearts must be.
Tribalism isn’t just raising our
hands today, it’s an expression of our desire, our hearts, and this tribalism
is a work we must carry out every day against this tendency. You have to listen
to others, it’s a work of opening your heart.
(On the question of corruption): I
ask myself, can we justify corruption? Just for the mere fact that everyone is
corrupt? How can we be christians and overcome this evil of corruption? In my
country a young 20 year old dedicated himself to politics. He studied with
great vigor he went here and there and he obtained a job. And one day he had to
decide: about which things he had to buy. And he asked for three quotes. He
studied these three quotes and chose the cheapest, the easiest, and he took it
to his boss so his boss could sign off on it and he said why do you choose this
one? (He replied) because you have to choose what is easiest for the finances
of a country. No (his boss replied) you have to choose that which gives more
money in your pocket. But I came to carry out politics for the good of the
nation (the young man said), and the boss replied: I do politics to rob, to
steal.
One example and it’s not just in
politics, in all areas of life, also in the Vatican. These are cases of
corruption.
Corruption is something that eats
inside, like sugar. Sweet, we like it, it’s easy. And then we end up in a bad
way. So much sugar that we end up being diabetic or our country ends up being
diabetic. Each time when we accept a bribe and we put it in our pockets, we
destroy our hearts. we destroy our personalities, and we destroy our country.
Please, don’t develop that taste for that sugar which is called corruption. You
might say ‘but Holy Father, I see many who are corrupt. I see so many people
who are sold. Just for a little bit of money. Without worrying about the
livelihood of others.’
As in everything you have to make a
start. If you don’t want corruption in lives, hearts and country, start now,
yourselves. Because if you don’t start than the person that’s beside you won’t
start.
Corruption moreover takes away our
joy, our peace. Corrupt people don’t live in peace. What I’m about to tell you
really happened. In my city, my home town, a man died and we all knew that he
was corrupt. I asked a few days after, ‘how did the funeral go’? And a lady
with a great sense of humor replied: ‘they couldn’t close the coffin properly
because they wanted to put inside the coffin all the money he had robbed.’
What you rob through corruption will
stay here. But also, what will remain is that the hearts of many men and women
are wounded by these examples of corruption. What will remain behind was all
the lack of good that could have been done. It will remain in the children who
suffer.
Young people: corruption is not a
path to life, it’s a path to death.
There was one question, how to use
means of communication, to spread the message of Christ, and to promote good
initiatives so that you can make a difference. The first means of communicating
is the words, the smiles, the gestures. The first gesture is being close to
others. The first gesture to trying look for friendship with others.
If you speak well among yourselves
then you can accept each other as brothers and sisters, even if you’re from
different tribes. If you’re closest to the poor to those who are abandoned
to...those who are completely rejected, those gestures of communication are
much more contagious than any channel on TV.
These questions and these thoughts
can help you. But ask Jesus from your hearts, pray to the Lord. So that he can
give you the strength to destroy tribalism and hold each others hand as brothers
and sisters. So that you have the courage to not be corrupted, Offering
yourselves for others, by offering a gestures, a word a smile your expressions
of closeness.
(In response to
Manuel’s questions):
I am worried about the first thing
he said. What can we do to stop young people being recruited into
radicalization? What can we do after they have been recruited to try to get
them to come back? To answer this we have to ask why do young people full of
ideals allow themselves to be radicalized in this way? They leave their
friends, their tribe, their country. They leave their lives behind in order to
learn how to kill. This is question which you yourselves must pose to all
people in authority. If a young woman or man has no work, cannot study, what can
he or she do? A life of delinquency, falling into drug abuse, or even into
suicide. In Europe the statistics of suicide are not published. They get
involved or seduced into an activity which leads them into a bad path. The
first thing we have to do to stop a young person from being recruited is
education and work.
If a young person has no work than
what future awaits him or her? And that’s where the idea of being seduced or
recruited comes in.
Even if there are small
opportunities, without them what can they do? That is the danger. It’s a social
danger which is beyond us and it’s even beyond the country because it depends
on an international system that is unjust. It’s the injustice of having an
economic system where the person is not the center but rather the god of money.
Pray! But (pray) really hard. God is
much stronger than any recruitment campaign. And then, speak with tenderness,
understanding and love and with great patience to invite them to come watch
some football, to walk with you, to be together in your group, don't allow them
to remain on their own.
Transitory things that end up
destroying you. A question Manuel asked. It’s a question that a professor in
theology might ask. How can we understand that God is our father, how to see
his hand in the tragedies of life, how can we find God’s peace? This question
men and women all over the world ask themselves. And they can’t find the
reason. And there are some questions that you can turn around in your minds
over and over again and never find the answer. How can I see the hand of God in
tragedy? I was going to say there’s just one response but no, there’s no
response. There is a path. To look at the Son of God. God endured death to save
all of us. God became a tragedy. God allowed himself to be destroyed on the
cross.
When you don’t understand something,
when desperation hits you then look at the cross. That is the great failure of
God, that is the destruction of God, and it’s a challenge to our faith. And
this is hope, because history did not end in that failure. Rather it’s in the
resurrection of Christ that renewed all of us.
I am going to tell you something
personal. It’s 12 (o’clock) are you hungry? (Laughter and cheers).
I am going to tell you something
private. In my pocket I always carry two thing: a rosary to pray something
which seems odd, this is here is the history of God’s failure, it’s the way of
the cross, a small way of the cross, as Jesus suffered and when they condemned him
right up to where he was buried with these two things I do the best I can. And
thanks to these two things, I never lose hope.
A last question from our theologian
friend Manuel, what word can you offer to young people who don’t experience
love in their families. How is it possible to come out of this experience?
Everywhere, there are abandoned
children, either at birth or as life progressed they were abandoned and they
don’t feel love from their families.
This is why family is so important.
Defend the family. Defend the family always. everywhere there’s not only kids
who are abandoned but also elderly are abandoned with no one to visit to them
with no-one to love them,
How do you come out of this very
negative experience? There is one remedy, one remedy alone, to come out of
these experiences. To do that which you did not receive. If you didn’t receive
understanding, then be understanding with others
If you felt pain of loneliness come
close to those who are alone, flesh is cured by flesh and God became flesh in
order to cure us, let’s do the same ourselves.
Well then, before the umpire sounds
the bell, it’s time to close. I thank you from my heart, first that you came,
second that you allow me to speak in my mother tongue. I am really grateful you
prayed so many rosaries for me. And please, I ask you to pray for me. Because I
too need those prayers and very much so. I count on your prayers and before
leaving, if we stand now and pray to our heavenly father who has only one
defect - he can’t stop being a father.
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