Yesterday morning, aboard the trans-Atlantic flight from Rome to Rio, the Holy Father spent some time with the accredited journalists. This morning, the Vatican Press Office issued the transcript of the conversation which took place, beginning with an introduction by Father Frederico Lombardi, SJ, Director of the Press Office.
Father Lombardi: Holy Father, we welcome you among this flying
community of journalists, communicators
and technicians. We are very proud to
accompany you on your first intercontinental, international voyage, after
having already followed you to Lampedusa, another occasion of great
emotion! This is also your first trip
back to your own continent, at the other end of the world. It is a journey with youth, so there is a lot
of interest. As you can see, we have
taken all the seats available for journalists on this flight. We are more than 70 persons, and this group
is composed of a wide variety of criteria, including representatives from the
world of television (including editors and cameramen), representatives from the
print media, from various press agencies, from radio, internet etc. Practically all the media are represented in
a qualified manner. There are also
representatives of various cultures and languages here. Aboard this flight, we have a good number of
Italians, and of course Brazilians who have come from Brazil in order to be
aboard this flight with You: there are ten Brazilians who came especially for
this reason. Then there ae ten from the
United States of America, nine from France, six from Spain; then there are
Englishmen, Mexicans, Germans, also Japanese, Argentinians (naturally), Polish,
Portuguese and Russians represented. So,
you see that this is a very diverse community.
Many of those present follow especially international Papal visits, so
this is not their first experience. Some
have even travelled many times with the Pope, so they know these travels
perhaps better than You do. Others are
here for the first time, because for example, the Brazilians are especially
interested in this trip. So, we thought that
it would be fitting to welcome you as part of this group, also with the voice
of one of our own, or better yet one of your own, who was chosen (I believe
without any particular problem or conflict) because she is certainly one of
those who has travelled most frequently with the Holy Father: I believe she’s
competing with Doctor Gasbarri for the number of trips she’s made. She is also a person who comes from your
continent, who can speak in Spanish, in your language, and she is a person
(shall we say) who is a woman, so it is fitting that we should allow her to
speak. I will now give the floor to her,
to Valentina Alazraki, who has been a Televisa
reporter for many years, yet she is still young, as you can see. We are happy to have her here with us because
just a few weeks ago, she broke one of her legs and we were worried that she
would not be able to come. Instead, she
healed with time, took off the cast two or three days ago and already she is
here on the plane. So, she will share
the sentiments of this flying community with you.
Valentina
Alazaraki (speaking in Spanish): Pope
Francis, good morning! The only reason
why I have the privilege to greet you is the great number of hours I’ve
flown. I participated in the first
flight with John Paul II to Mexico, my own country. So I was the mascot, and now I am the dean:
34 and a half years after! For this
reason I have the privilege of greeting you.
We know from your friends and colleagues in Argentina that you do not particularly
consider journalists to be saints worthy
of your devotion. Perhaps you thought
that Father Lombardi was throwing you into the lion’s den … but the truth is
that we are not so ferocious; in fact it is a great pleasure for us to be able
to accompany you on this journey. We
would be happy if you consider us as companions on this journey, and on many
other future ones as well. Obviously, we
are journalists, and whether today, tomorrow or in the following days, you
should choose to answer our questions, we will not refuse, because we are
journalists. We know that you have
confided this trip to Mary, having visited the Basilica of Saint Mary Major,
and we know that you intend to visit Aparecida, so we thought it fitting that
we should present you with a gift, a small statue of the pilgrim Virgin. May she accompany you on this pilgrimage and
on many others as well. Coincidentally,
it is a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, not because she is the Queen of
Mexico, but because she is the Patron of the Americas. In this way, no other statue of the Virgin could
create resentment or jealousy, neither one from Argentina, nor Aparecida, nor
from any other place. With great
affection on the part of all of us, I present her to you now, with the hope
that she will protect you on this journey and on many others to come.
Father Lombardi: Now we will hand the floor over to the Holy
Father, naturally, so that he might speak a few words of introduction to us
about this journey.
Pope Francis: Good morning.
Good morning to all of you. They
said (I think), something a bit strange: You
are not saints, worthy of my devotion, I am here among the lions … but not
so ferocious, eh? Thank you. In truth, I don’t want to give an interview,
but really I don’t know why, I can’t, that’s the way it is. For me it’s a bit tiring to give interviews,
but I thank you all. This first voyage
is about seeking after the youth, but we will not find them isolated from their
lives. I want to discover them in their social context, in society, because
when we isolate the youth, we do them an injustice; we cut off their sense of
belonging. Young people have a sense of
membership: membership in a family, in a country, in a culture, in a faith …
They have a sense of membership and we should not isolate them! Above all, we cannot isolate them from the
rest of society. They are (truly) the
future of a people: this is true! But
not only them: they are the future because they have the strength, they are
young, they go on. But also the other
extreme of life is important: the elderly are the future of a people. A people has a future if they look to the
future with both these points of reference: with youth, with strength because
they carry us into the future, and with the elderly because they are the ones
who share the wisdom of life. Many
times, I think that we do an injustice to the elderly by setting them aside as
though they had nothing to say; they have wisdom, the wisdom of life, the
wisdom of history, the wisdom of our patrimony, the wisdom of the family. We need this wisdom! For this reason, I am going to find the
youth, but in their social context, first and foremost with the elderly. It is true that the world crisis doesn’t look
good for young people. I read last week
about the percent of youth who have no work.
Consider the fact that we might see a generation who have never worked,
and work allows us to discover our personal dignity, the dignity of earning the
bread we eat. Our youth are in a time of
crisis. We have become accustomed to a
culture of waste: too often with regard to the elderly. But now we risk also doing the same to our
youth who are without work, for them too, this is becoming a culture of
waste. We must stop this habit of
waste! No! We need to cultivate a culture of inclusion,
a culture of encounter. We need to make
an effort to include everyone in society!
This is a bit of the sense of what I want to say during this visit with
the youth, with the youth of society.
Thank you very much, dear journalists, saints not worthy of my devotion and not so ferocious lions! Thank you very much, thank you! Now I want to greet each of you. Thank you.
Father Lombardi: Thank you so very much, Holy Father, for this
precious introduction … and now, each journalist in turn will greet you. Stand here so that each of them can come to
you, meet you and tell you where they are from, which television station or
news medium they represent. In this way,
the Pope can greet each one and come to know us …
Pope Francis:
We have ten hours left …
The Pope greeted
each of the journalists, one by one.
When all had had an opportunity to speak with him, Father Lombardi
continued:
Father Lombardi:
Have you really finished meeting everyone?
Yes? Great! We sincerely thank you, Holy Father, because
this has been, I believe, for all of us, an unforgettable opportunity, a great
beginning to this journey. I believe
that you have come to know a bit of the heart of these lions, so that during your travels, we can be your collaborators,
better able to understand the message you want to share, and help you to spread
it more effectively. Thank you, Your
Holiness.
Pope Francis: I
really want to thank you, and to ask you to help me, to work with me on this
trip, for good, for good; for the good of society: for the sake of the youth,
for the sake of the elderly, both together, don’t forget! And now I feel like the prophet Daniel, a bit
sad because I have seen that the lions were not so fierce. Thank you very much, thank you. Hugs for everyone. Thank you!
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