Pope Francis at Audience: no child is a 'mistake'

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis held his weekly General Audience on Wednesday – the fourth day of the Octave of Easter – in a Sun-drenched St. Peter’s Square. The Holy Father continued his catechetical series on the family, focusing specifically on the role of children in family life, and especially on the duties of parents, of the Church, and of society toward children.

Calling children, “[T]he most beautiful fruit of the blessing that the Creator bestowed upon man and woman,” Pope Francis went on to say, “all of us adults are responsible for children, and each of us is duty-bound to do what he can,” in order to guarantee that every child’s basic needs are met and fundamental rights respected.

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“Children are never ‘a mistake’,” said Pope Francis. “Their hunger is not a mistake, nor is their poverty, their fragility, their abandonment – many children abandoned in the streets; and neither is their ignorance or their lack of skills – so many children who do not know what a school is –  none of this is a ‘mistake’.” The Holy Father went on to say, “If anything, these are reasons to love them more, more generously: what are we to make of our solemn declarations of human rights and the rights of the child, if we punish children for the errors of adults?”

It was a theme to which the Pope returned in the English summary read out following the main catechesis in Italian. “Every child who begs on the streets, who is denied an education or medical care, is a cry to God,” he said. “May we always care for our children, not counting the cost, so that they may never believe themselves to be mistakes, but always know their infinite worth.”