ROME (AP) – Pope Francis on Monday called on governments to use the coronavirus crisis as a revolutionary opportunity to create a world that is more economically and environmentally just – and where basic health care is guaranteed all.
Francis appealed in his annual foreign policy speech to the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, an appointment that was postponed for two weeks after suffering a sciatic nerve pain crisis that made it difficult to walk and walk.
Francis urged governments represented in the Apostolic Palace to contribute to global initiatives to provide vaccines to the poor and use the pandemic to reset what he said is a sick economic model that exploits the poor and the Earth.
“We need a kind of new Copernican revolution that can put the economy at the service of men and women, not the other way around,” he said, referring to the 16th-century paradigm shift that said the sun was in the center of the universe, not the Earth.
He said that such a revolutionary new economy is “one that brings life not death, one that is inclusive and not exclusive, human and non-dehumanizing, one that cares for the environment and does not prey on it.”
Francis has frequently called on the world to use the pandemic as a chance to reimagine a global economy that values people and the planet for profit, and one in which brotherhood and solidarity guide human relations rather than conflict and division.
Francis, 84, struck these issues in his long address, which was held in a larger-than-usual reception room to provide a greater social distance for the 88 ambassadors who attended. At the end, Francis invited everyone to get up, but said he would not shake their hand and urged them to keep their distance. Francis was vaccinated against the virus.
In his speech, he called for all basic health care. He noted that those on the fringes of society and working in the informal economy were among those most affected by the pandemic, with the fewest social networks to survive.
“Driven by despair, many have sought other forms of income and risk being exploited through illegal or forced labor, prostitution and various criminal activities, including human trafficking,” Francis warned.
He said that children had suffered an “educational catastrophe” with schools closed, women were victims of domestic abuse, believers were deprived of community worship and that all of humanity was restricted from close human contact.
“Along with vaccines, brotherhood and hope are, as it were, the medicine we need in today’s world,” he said.
In addition to the pandemic, Francis listed other areas of particular concern, including the coup in Myanmar, which Francis visited in 2017. He called for political leaders to be “promptly released as a sign encouraging sincere dialogue for the good of the country. “
He called for an end to the war in Syria, noting that 2021 will be 10 years old and urged the international community to “approach the causes of the conflict with honesty and courage and seek solutions.” He praised the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons and the extension of the START treaty between the US and Russia.
He also called for disarmament efforts to expand to conventional and chemical weapons.