In the Vatican, the Pope met with volunteers of the World Literacy Foundation, encouraging them to continue their work of fighting poverty and promoting peace through education.
(Vatican News Network)Pope Francis received volunteers from the Opera di Promozione dell’Alfabetizzazione nel Mondo in the Vatican on January 23. The Pope praised the Catholic nonprofit for its efforts to promote the right to education, saying education is a tool to fight poverty.
The Society for World Literacy is committed to building and helping schools, organizing teacher education, literacy and vocational training for adults, especially women, and promoting sustainable development and the human dignity of everyone in more than 80 countries. In addition, the literacy charity works to promote a culture of peace through schools and intercultural programs in sister cities of the northern and southern hemispheres.
The Society for World Literacy was founded in 1972 by the Italian priest Carlo Muratore. He spent many years as a missionary in Venezuela and realized that illiteracy was one of the main causes of poverty.
In his speech, Pope Francis emphasized that this belief is at the heart of St. Paul VI’s encyclical “Development of Nations” and other important papal documents from the 1960s. Paul VI “clearly pointed out that development is the path of peace” and that “without education there can be no integral development of human beings”.
These documents, the pope said, including Pope John XXIII’s encyclical “Peace in the World”, are still relevant in today’s world, because “the development model has not changed” and many causes of backwardness have not been addressed. eradicate. For this, the valuable work of literacy societies is needed. “Your work is aimed at eradicating one of these backward conditions, illiteracy,” said the Pope.
The Pope then pointed out that the “dream” of the encyclical “Development” is also the dream of the encyclical “Frethren”: it is the dream of the Church, or rather, the dream of God. “In the world he wants, we will all live as brothers and sisters in full dignity.”
“When you work with the many missionaries and men and women who work in this ‘field’, in researching and implementing educational projects or helping schools, remote adoptions, you contribute to an open world where everyone Having companionship on their journey through life not only meets their basic needs, but also enables them to develop their full potential.”
Finally, the Pope encouraged the volunteers of the World Society for Literacy to continue their literacy work, constantly “nourishing it with the life force of the Gospel. May the Holy Spirit inspire and motivate them in their work”.
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