On the World Day of the Poor, Pope Leo XIV condemned “corruption that generates social injustice”

Pope Robert Prevost added that “protecting those in need means listening to them and not just talking to them, offering the help that the powerful cannot guarantee and prefer to deny.”

“Recognizing God means taking refuge, his closest expression, of the poor, whose voice is devoured like bread by multiple overlapping techniques.”

He cited in particular techniques in the digital sphere (such as Artificial Intelligence) that “reinforce prejudices and erect “curtains of indifference”.

Leo XIV highlighted the current loss of the sense of transcendence. The phrase “the Lord is the Refuge of the Poor” refers “to the historic destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, in which the people, deprived of the presence of God, experienced unprecedented material and moral misery.”

“Although it refers to a past event, this phrase speaks to any generation,” said the Bishop of Rome.

He added that “the spread of a social injustice that springs from corruption, as deplorable as it is discriminatory, is also noticeable in our days.” “The loss of the sense of transcendence in everyday life is no longer a denial of the existence of God, but rather evidence of the lack of consideration of his goodness and mercy for the construction of personal and social justice,” he noted.

“The first to suffer the consequences of this vacuum are the poor, whose number is constantly increasing in many societies,” recalls the pontiff.”

“The absence of God places people no longer next to each other, in reciprocal respect, but one above the other in the sign of dominance and abuse”.

Leo

There are multiple and overlapping techniques with which the cry for justice of those who live in a state of need are suppressed, based on the digital environment “which radicalizes prejudice and increases the curtain of indifference that surrounds its causes,” the Pope adds in his message.

The request for help “will not result in no response from God, but in a response that restores the dignity and recognition of the other as a brother or sister with whom to “organize their own dreams, making hope come true.”

León highlights that “taking refuge in God is equivalent to finding true and safe protection, because what the powerful want” they cannot guarantee and prefer to deny.”

More than others, the pontiff continues, “the poor recognize what is essential, because that is what he lives on. More than everyone, he is similar to Jesus, dwelling in the shelter of the Most High the night of abandonment and loneliness, of affliction, of injustice and of offense.”

A reciprocal exchange of protection “witnesses the unity of the Church in universal poverty,” “Also the immense value that each one has in the eyes of God and Others,” concludes the Pope.