Vatican City, Nov 11, 2008 / 10:06 am
Helping children in danger from disease and exploitation was the focus of a press conference held by Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan and other clergy at the Vatican’s press office this morning. The aim of the upcoming conference will be to examine what the Scriptures say about helping children and to seek ways to apply these teachings.
This year’s international conference being held by the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care has as its theme: "Pastoral Care in the Treatment of Sick Children,” and will be held at the Vatican from November 13 to 15.
Speaking to the press on Tuesday morning, Cardinal Lozano Barragan began his remarks by highlighting the desperate situation of many children around the world with some statistics. The cardinal asserted that "in the last decade more than two million children have been killed in the course of armed conflict, six million have been left handicapped, tens of thousands mutilated by antipersonnel mines and 300,000 recruited as child soldiers. More than 4,300,000 children have died of AIDS.”
While Cardinal Lozano Barragan cited poverty as the “principal cause of childhood sickness,” he also underscored the fact that, “Two hundred and fifty million children under 15 work” and that many children and adolescents are “left to their own devices” when they view television programs or search the Internet.