The concert was organized by Global Citizen, an advocacy organization founded in Australia in 2008 focused on poverty reduction, with support from the Coca-Cola company, Delta Airlines, Verizon, Citi, Cisco, and Procter & Gamble.
Selena Gomez hosted the concert which included performances by Jennifer Lopez and the Foo Fighters, as well as appearances by David Letterman, Ben Affleck, and Chrissy Teigen.
In the pope’s video message, he said that a “sick economy” is one that “allows a very rich few, a very rich few, to own more than the rest of humanity.”
Pope Francis also spoke about the “virus of individualism” and the “virus of closed nationalism,” which he said stands in the way of the “internationalism of vaccines.”
“God the Creator instills in our hearts a new and generous spirit to abandon our individualisms and promote the common good: a spirit of justice that mobilizes us to ensure universal access to the vaccine and the temporary suspension of intellectual property rights; a spirit of communion that allows us to generate a different, more inclusive, fair and sustainable economic model,” he said.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden also sent a video message to the Vax Live concert, in which the president said that the United States is “working with leaders around the world to share more vaccines.”