(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met with young people at the Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi on Friday morning where he addressed issues including corruption and tribalism.
Below find a section for the Pope’s words to youth at the Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi.
Thank you very much for the Rosaries you brought for me, thank you for your presence, your enthusiastic presence here. Thank you Lynette and thank you Manuel.
I ask myself something on the basis of all the questions that were asked by Lynette and Manuel. Why do divisions, wars and deaths occur? Fanatism, 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 of evil takes us to a lack of unity, it takes us to tribalism, corruption and drugs. It takes us to a destruction out of fanatism. How do we make it such fanatical idealism doesn’t take us to be robbed of a brother or a sister. There is a word which might uncomfortable to the ear, but I don’t want to avoid it. You know it before me. You showed this word when you brought these expressions of Rosaries that you brought for me. The Bishop used it in the preparations with prayers for this meeting today. A man or a woman loses the worst of 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, but there are different ways of looking at difficulties or you see that something that destroys stops you , or you regard them as a real opportunity. To all of you is open the choice, for me is this a path of destruction or is it an opportunity to overcome this difficulty for me, for a member of my family and for this country? Young people we don’t live in heaven, we live on earth and earth is full of difficulties and not only of opportunities but sometimes invitations that will lead you astray towards evil. But there is something that all of you have which is big, the capacity to choose. Which path do you want to choose? Which of these two do I want? To choose the path of difficulty and division or the path of opportunity, opportunity to overcome myself and overcome difficulties . There are some other difficulties which you mentioned which are real challenges and before that a question. Do you want to overcome challenges or be overcome by them? You’re like the sportsmen who come here, the women and men, all those who sold the ticket to others and have put the money in their pockets. You have to choose. Lynette mentioned challenge, tribalism, it can destroy, it can mean having your hands hidden behind your backs and having a stone in each hand to throw to others. Tribalism can only become with the ear, with the heart and with your hand. With your ear. What is your culture, why are you like this? Why do your cousins have these customs? Do they feel inferior or superior and with a heart? Once we’ve heard the response with our ears then it passes through to our hearts and then I extend my hand. If you don’t dialogue with each other, if you don’t listen to each other, then you’re going to have the division like dust, 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 you, to invite Lynette and Manuel to come up now and that we hold each other’s hands, lets hold hands together, lets stand up as a sign against bad tribalism. We’re all a nation, We are all a nation! That’s how are hearts must be. Tribalism isn’t just raising our hearts today, it’s an expression of our desire, of our hearts and this tribalism is a work that we must carry out every day against this tendency, to overcome this tendency of tribalism, it is a daily endeavour . It’s a work of the ear, you have to listen to others, it’s a work of opening your heart to others and it’s a work of your hands, you offer your hands to others.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis began his last day today in Kenya with a visit to slum dwellers in the heart of Nairobi. Speaking to the inhabitants of Kangemi slum he reminded them the Lord never forgets them.
In a hard-hitting appeal he asked for social inclusion, education, protection for families – a response to what he called the consequences of new forms of colonization.
In Nairobi, Linda Bordoni reports
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There are approximately 2.5 million slum dwellers in Nairobi representing 60% of the city’s population and occupying just 6% of the land.
One of the slums is called Kibera – it’s the biggest and most populated slum in the world.
But organizers have chosen to host Pope Francis’s visit is Kangemi. It’s known as “Nairobi’s friendly slum” because it is less dangerous – less harrowing in its desperate poverty – than some of the other 6 slums in the city.
The Pope’s visit to Kangemi was the first official event on this last day of his in Kenya. For him – I suspect – perhaps the most important and poignant as he has made walking with the poor a top priority of his pontificate right from the very beginning.
As Pope Francis’ pope-mobile bumped its way down the potholed dirt road taking him to the Church of St Joseph the Worker I couldn’t help but wonder whether he knows that that road has especially been improved for the occasion and that the other roads in the area are much worse. I am sure he does.
The Jesuit-led Church where parishioners and a selection of slum dwellers from all the other slums of the city spruced up to welcome him is small and simple. Just the kind of place I think Pope Francis feels at home in.
Speaking in his own Spanish, Pope Francis told those present they have a special place in his life, he said he knows their joys, their hopes and their sorrows: “How can I not denounce the injustices which you suffer?”
And although he was close and familiar in his attitude and unspoken body language, his words contained strong socio-political overtones as he talked of the dreadful injustice of urban exclusion and of the “wounds inflicted by minorities who cling to power and wealth, who selfishly squander while a growing majority is forced to flee to abandoned, filthy and run-down peripheries”.
As he always had since his arrival here in Kenya, the Pope visibly appreciated the beautiful singing and dancing put on for him. This is something observers keep commenting on at every occasion. What many don’t realize it’s part of life here. Much more than entertainment, this is how Africans across the continent communicate emotions, celebrate rites of passage, and help strengthen the bonds between communities and tribes.
But there was time for more as well: being together, holding hands, embracing children. And lots of hope.
Hope that the government will continue to listen to the people and heed Pope Francis’ urgent call to give all families dignified housing, access to drinking water, a toilet, reliable streets, squares, schools, hospitals, areas for sport, recreation and art.
The basic services each person deserves on the basis of his or her infinite human dignity.
In Nairobi with Pope Francis, I’m Linda Bordoni
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Friday morning visited Kangemi slum in Nairobi and was welcomed with cheers by the residents there. During a speech he called for adequate and dignified housing and basic but vital services, especially for the most marginalized. See below the Pope’s address Address of His Holiness Pope Francis Visit to Kangemi Friday, 27 November 2015 Thank you for welcoming me to your neighbourhood. I thank Archbishop Kivuva and Father Pascal for their kind words. I feel very much at home sharing these moments with brothers and sisters who, and I am not ashamed to say this, have a special place in my life and my decisions. I am here because I want you to know that your joys and hopes, your troubles and your sorrows, are not indifferent to me. I realize the difficulties which you experience daily! How can I not denounce the injustices which you suffer? First of all, though, I would like to speak about something which the language of exclusion often disregards or seems to ignore. It is the wisdom found in poor neighbourhoods. A wisdom which is born of the “stubborn resistance” of that which is authentic” (cf. Laudato Si’, 112), from Gospel values which an opulent society, anaesthetized by unbridled consumption, would seem to have forgotten. You are able “to weave bonds of belonging and togetherness which convert overcrowding into an experience of community in which the walls of the ego are torn down and the barriers of selfishness overcome” (ibid., 149). The culture of poor neighbourhoods, steeped in this particular wisdom, “has very positive traits, which can offer something to these times in which we live; it is expressed in values such as solidarity, giving one’s life for others, preferring birth to death, providing Christian burial to one’s dead; finding a place for the sick in one’s home, sharing bread with the hungry (for ‘there is always room for one more seat at the table’), showing patience and strength when faced with great adversity, and so on” (Equipo de Sacerdotes para las Villas de Emergencia, Argentina, Reflexiones sobre urbanización y la cultura villera, 2010). Values grounded in the fact each human being is more important than the god of money. Thank you for reminding us that another type of culture is possible. I want in first place to uphold these values which you practice, values which are not quoted in the stock exchange, are not subject to speculation, and have no market price. I congratulate you, I accompany you and I want you to know that the Lord never forgets you. The path of Jesus began on the peripheries, it goes from the poor and with the poor, towards others. To see these signs of good living that increase daily in your midst in no way entails a disregard for the dreadful injustice of urban exclusion. These are wounds inflicted by minorities who cling to power and wealth, who selfishly squander while a growing majority is forced to flee to abandoned, filthy and run-down peripheries. This becomes even worse when we see the unjust distribution of land (if not in this neighbourhood, certainly in others) which leads in many cases to entire families having to pay excessive and unfair rents for utterly unfit housing. I am also aware of the serious problem posed by faceless “private developers” who hoard areas of land and even attempt to appropriate the playgrounds of your children’s schools. This is what happens when we forget that “God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favouring anyone” (Centesimus Annus, 31). One very serious problem in this regard is the lack of access to infrastructures and basic services. By this I mean toilets, sewers, drains, refuse collection, electricity, roads, as well as schools, hospitals, recreational and sport centres, studios and workshops for artists and craftsmen. I refer in particular to access to drinking water. “Access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity” (Laudato Si’, 30). To deny a family water, under any bureaucratic pretext whatsoever, is a great injustice, especially when one profits from this need. This situation of indifference and hostility experienced by poor neighbourhoods is aggravated when violence spreads and criminal organizations, serving economic or political interests, use children and young people as “canon fodder” for their ruthless business affairs. I also appreciate the struggles of those women who fight heroically to protect their sons and daughters from these dangers. I ask God that that the authorities may embark, together with you, upon the path of social inclusion, education, sport, community action, and the protection of families, for this is the only guarantee of a peace that is just, authentic and enduring. These realities which I have just mentioned are not a random combination of unrelated problems. They are a consequence of new forms of colonialism which would make African countries “parts of a machine, cogs on a gigantic wheel” (Ecclesia in Africa, 52). Indeed, countries are frequently pressured to adopt policies typical of the culture of waste, like those aimed at lowering the birth rate, which seek “to legitimize the present model of distribution, where a minority believes that it has the right to consume in a way which can never be universalized” (Laudato Si’, 50). In this regard, I would propose a renewed attention to the idea of a respectful urban integration, as opposed to elimination, paternalism, indifference or mere containment. We need integrated cities which belong to everyone. We need to go beyond the mere proclamation of rights which are not respected in practice, to implementing concrete and systematic initiatives capable of improving the overall living situation, and planning new urban developments of good quality for housing future generations. The social and environmental debt owed to the poor of cities can be paid by respecting their sacred right to the “three Ls”: Land, Lodging, Labour. This is not a question of philanthropy; rather it is a duty incumbent upon all of us. I wish to call all Christians, and their pastors in particular, to renew their missionary zeal, to take initiative in the face of so many situations of injustice, to be involved in their neighbours’ problems, to accompany them in their struggles, to protect the fruits of their communitarian labour and to celebrate together each victory, large or small. I realize that you are already doing much, but I ask to remember this is not just another task; it may instead be the most important task of all, because “the Gospel is addressed in a special way to the poor” (Benedict XVI, Address to the Bishops of Brazil, 11 May 2007, 3). Dear neighbours, dear brothers and sisters, let us together pray, work and commit ourselves to ensuring that every family has dignified housing, access to drinking water, a toilet, reliable sources of energy for lighting, cooking and improving their homes; that every neighbourhood has streets, squares, schools, hospitals, areas for sport, recreation and art; that basic services are provided to each of you; that your appeals and your pleas for greater opportunity can be heard; that all can enjoy the peace and security which they rightfully deserve on the basis of their infinite human dignity. Mungu awabariki! God bless you! And I ask you, please, do not forget to pray for me. (from Vatican Radio)…