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By: The opinion Posted May 25, 2023, 19:10 pm EDT
He Pope Francisco expressed his regret for the drama and “serious problem” of the undocumented immigrantsof all those who migrate “out of necessity”, from Vatican City and in an interview in Spanish with Telemundo journalist Julio Vaqueiro.
Francisco spoke of his own story as the son of immigrants (His father was an accountant for a bank in Italy when they emigrated to Argentina) and he assured, nostalgic for his Argentine land that “you always leave something behind.”
“An emigrant always lacks the native air. You lack the native air. The mate that your mother, your aunt, your grandmother gives you freshly made is not the same as the one that you make yourself, ”he replied to the journalist’s question.
The Pope also spoke with the Hispanic reporter about his health, abortion, sexual abuse, changes within the Church and the request made by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, among other topics.
About these ten years of papacy and the changes experienced, Francis said that “many things have changed” in the Catholic Churchbut what he put into practice was what “the cardinals in the pre-conclave meetings had said had to be done.”
“And when I was elected I put those things into practice: the economic system, the new laws of the Vatican State, the pastoral care of the Vatican Service, which is very important,” he said.
In this context of change, he stressed that, “part of this pastorality, women entered (…) who are very executive, very practical: the lieutenant governor is a woman. And many things have changed,” the pope said in the interview.
Francis, who was elected pope in 2013 when he was Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in his hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina, downplayed it, saying that “all this was requested by the cardinals in the pre-conclave meetings.”
The meeting took place in the Vatican, shortly before a meeting with young people from the Scholas Occurrentes foundation, which he created in his native country 30 years ago and since he became pope has spread to the world, the Hispanic chain reported.
When asked about what he still has to do, the 86-year-old pope said “everything.”
“As you do it, you realize that you lack everything, this is insatiable,” he told the journalist.
Asked about abortion, a “very big” topic of debate now in the United States, he emphasized that “a month after conception, before the mother realizes it, the entire system is drawn inside and the DNA is clear. She is a living being ”.
“Is it lawful to eliminate a living being to solve a problem? Is it lawful to hire a hit man to solve a problem?” the pope wondered.
Regarding the war in Ukraine, he said that it is “a political problem” and that “peace will be achieved the day that the two of them can speak, or the two of them or through others.”
About his state of health (he recently suffered from severe bronchitis) and the problems with his knee, he said he is “much better” and that he can now walk.
“The knee was getting fixed and before I couldn’t walk. Now I have walked again. There are days that are more painful, like today. There are days that not, but it is part of the development, ”she said.
With information from EFE
Keep reading:
– Pope Francis reveals that the Vatican develops a secret peace mission for Ukraine
– “It has been an inhuman, cruel and violent abuse”: the scandal of sexual assaults on minors in the Catholic Church that shocks Bolivia and the harsh claim of the government to the Vatican
– Zelensky met with Pope Francis and asked him to back the peace plan and help return Ukrainian children to Russia