Madrid, Spain, Apr 17, 2009 / 15:20 pm
In a recent pastoral letter, the Coadjutor Archbishop of Sevilla and the Apostolic Administrator of Cordoba, Juan Jose Ansenjo Pelegrina, called for “the eradication of child slavery” and said April 16 “should be declared the International Day Against Child Slavery throughout the world” in memory of the Pakistani boy Iqbal Masih, who was killed in 1995.
The archbishop reminded the faithful that children in slavery “need our compassion, solidarity and commitment in order to bring about their liberation.”
“The Church has always been mother and teacher at the service of the poor and the forgotten, especially children,” he said. “Pope Benedict XVI,” he continued, “has reminded us of our baptismal commitment to serve the least of the earth, who bear in their faces the sufferings of the Crucified one, and among whom the 400 million child slaves occupy an important place.”