Below is Pope Francis’ catechesis at the General Audience on January 8 on children and the “plague of child labor”:
Dear brothers and sisters, dear children, good morning!
I wish to dedicate this and the next catechesis to children , and to reflect on the scourge of child labour. Today we know how to project ourselves towards Mars or towards virtual worlds, but we are tired of looking into the eyes of a child who has been left out and who is exploited and abused. The century that creates artificial intelligence and projects multi-planetary existences does not yet take into account the wound of humiliated, exploited and mortally wounded childhood. Let us think about this.
First of all, we ask ourselves: what message does the Holy Scripture give us about children? It is interesting to note that the word that appears most often in the Old Testament, after the divine name Jahweh , is the word ben , “son”: almost five thousand times. “Children (ben) are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward” ( Ps 127:3). Children are a gift from God. Unfortunately, this gift is not always treated with respect. The Bible itself leads us along the paths of history where songs of joy resound, but also the cries of the victims.
Herod’s storm of violence also immediately breaks out against the newborn Jesus, who massacres the children of Bethlehem. A dark drama that is repeated in other ways throughout history. And here, for Jesus and his parents, the nightmare of becoming refugees in a foreign country, as happens to so many people and so many children today.
In his public life, Jesus went around preaching in the villages with his disciples. One day some mothers came to him and brought their children to be blessed; but the disciples rebuked them. Then Jesus, breaking with the tradition that considered children only as passive objects, called his disciples and said to them: “Let the children come to me and do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like them.”
In a similar passage, Jesus calls a child, places him among the disciples and says: “Unless you repent and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3).
Even today, in particular, there are too many children forced to work. But a child who does not smile and dream will not be able to discover or let his talents blossom.
Everywhere on earth there are children exploited by an economy that does not respect life; an economy that, in doing so, burns our greatest reservoir of hope and love.
Dear brothers and sisters, those who recognize themselves as children of God, and especially those who are sent to bring the good news of the Gospel to others, cannot remain indifferent. We cannot accept that our little brothers and sisters, instead of being loved and protected, should be deprived of their childhood, of their dreams, victims of exploitation and marginalization.
Let us ask the Lord to open our minds and hearts to care and tenderness, and that every boy and girl in the world may grow in age, wisdom and grace (Luke 2:52), receiving and giving love.