Mexico City, Mexico, Feb 13, 2016 / 09:46 am
Pope Francis marked his first full day in Mexico by urging the nation's leaders and diplomats to protect the future of the nation's young people.
"A people with a youthful population is a people able to renew and transform itself; it is an invitation to look to the future with hope and, in turn, it challenges us in a positive way here and now," the Pope said Saturday.
Young people make up more than half the nation's population, the pontiff observed, emphasizing the responsibility to forge a future through the work of men and women today "who are upright, honest, and capable of working for the common good."
"Experience teaches us that each time we seek the path of privileges or benefits for a few to the detriment of the good of all, sooner or later the life of society becomes a fertile soil for corruption, drug trade, exclusion of different cultures, violence and also human trafficking, kidnapping and death, bringing suffering and slowing down development."