continued … In Manila on Sunday morning January 18, 2015, Pope Francis visited the Catholic University of Santo Tomas, where he drew a crowd of 200,000 and where he came close to tears himself hearing from two rescued street children speak of their lives growing up poor and abandoned. Glyselle Palomar, a 12-year-old former street child, rescued by a church-run foundation, told him of children who are abandoned or neglected by their parents and end up on the streets using drugs or in prostitution. She wept as she asked “Why is God allowing something like this to happen, even to innocent children?” “And why are there so few who are helping us?” A visibly moved Francis said he had no answer. “Only when we are able to cry are we able to come close to responding to your question. Those on the margins cry. Those who have fallen by the wayside cry. Those who are discarded cry, but those who are living a life that is more or less without need, we don’t know how to cry. There are some realities that you can only see through eyes that have been cleansed by tears.” In Manila spirits were not dampened by the steady rain. A record 6 million people gathered in the streets, in the park, and spread out for miles in every direction trying to see Pope Francis and attend the last Mass of his Asian pilgrimage. To put that number of people in context, the population of Los Angeles is only 3.8 million. When St. John Paul ll visited the same park in 1995 the crowd numbered one million less, but the boulevards were so jammed that his motorcade could not reach the altar and he was forced to arrive late by helicopter. For Pope Francis, the Philippine authorities undertook one of their biggest-ever security operations, with nearly 40,000 soldiers and police deployed for the Sunday event. Worshippers wore ponchos of all colors and held flickering candles in the rain. Pope Francis made a triumphant entry into Rizal Park, riding on a popemobile based on the jeepney minibus, a common public transit vehicle. He wore the same cheap, plastic yellow rain poncho he wore the day earlier.
As he entered the park, the huge crowd chanted, “Papa Francesco, Papa Francesco.” He waved and repeatedly stopped so he could lean over barriers and kiss babies and touch the hands reaching out to him. Pope Francis dedicated the final homily of his weeklong Asia trip to children. “We need to see each child as a gift to be welcomed, cherished, and protected, and not allowing them to be robbed of hope… and condemned to a life on the streets.” He urged the crowd to protect their children from sin, alcohol and gambling, saying the devil “distracts us with the promise of ephemeral pleasures, superficial pastimes.” “Jesus himself needed to be protected, we too need to protect, guide and encourage our young people, helping them to build a society worthy of their great spiritual and cultural heritage.”
Sources: The Telegraph, Fox News, CNN, Buzzfeed.com, CNN, News.VA
Vatican Corner 2-8-15
