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Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenceless and innocent among… - Pope Francis
" "Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenceless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. Yet this defence of unborn life is closely linked to the defence of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defence of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, “every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual”.
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About Pope Francis
Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was the head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2013. Francis was the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first pope from outside Europe since Gregory III, a Syrian who reigned in the 8th century. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as the son of Italian parents, Bergoglio worked briefly as a chemical technician and nightclub bouncer before entering the seminary. He was ordained a priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 was Argentina's Provincial Superior of the Society of Jesus. On being elected Pope on 13 March 2013, he chose the papal name Francis in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis maintained the traditional views of the Church regarding abortion, clerical celibacy, and the ordination of women, but initiated dialogue on the possibility of deaconesses and made women full members of dicasteries in the Roman Curia. He maintained the Church should be more open and welcoming for members of the LGBT community, and favors legal recognition of same-sex couples. Francis was an outspoken critic of unbridled capitalism and free market economics, consumerism, and overdevelopment, and advocates taking action on climate change, a focus of his papacy with the promulgation of Laudato si'. In international diplomacy, he helped to restore full diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba and supported the cause of refugees during the European and Central American migrant crises.
Also Known As
Native Name:
Franciscus
Alternative Names:
Francisco
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Pope Francis I
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Jorge Bergoglio
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Franciscus I
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papa Francesco
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François Bergoglio
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Francis
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Pope Franciscus
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Pope Francesco
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Pope Francisco
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papë Franciscus
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Jorge Mario Bergoglio
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Jorge Mario Bergoglio Sivori
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Additional quotes by Pope Francis
There also exists a constant tension between ideas and realities. Realities simply are, whereas ideas are worked out. There has to be continuous dialogue between the two, lest ideas become detached from realities. It is dangerous to dwell in the realm of words alone, of images and rhetoric. So a third principle comes into play: realities are greater than ideas. This calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of kindness, intellectual discourse bereft of wisdom.
Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.
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This Jubilee is a privileged moment for the Church to learn to choose only ‘what pleases God most.’ And what is it that ‘pleases God most’? To forgive his children, to have mercy on them, so that they too might forgive their brothers and sisters, and become shining like torches of God’s mercy in the world.
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