The Gospel Of Life
In his 1994 Letter to Children, Pope John Paul II outlined the many difficult and tragic conditions that can befall children throughout the world, including outright abandonment by their parents (see story by Joshua Mercer below). In outlining these problems, he urged children to be empathetic and to look to the Child Jesus for a model of how to respond to children who suffer:
Unfortunately, many children in different parts of the world are suffering and being threatened: They are hungry and poor, they are dying from diseases and malnutrition, they are the victims of war, they are abandoned by their parents and condemned to remain without a home, without the warmth of a family of their own, they suffer many forms of violence and arrogance from grown-ups. How can we not care when we see the suffering of so many children, especially when this suffering is in some way caused by grownups?
