“Why does God allow this to happen?”: Pope, moved by a child’s question, departs from homily at youth forum

It was a revealing moment of genuine inspiration.

So moved by the tears of an abandoned child, who broke down and could not finish her prepared welcome speech, an emotional Pope Francis told an audience of youth on Sunday the world must “learn how to cry” over the plight of the millions of poor, hungry, homeless and abused children.

Twelve-year-old Glyzelle Iris Palomar, who was rescued and found shelter in a Church-run community, asked the Pope during a youth rally at the University of Sto. Tomas, “Many children are abandoned by their parents. Many of them became victims and bad things have happened to them, like drug addiction and prostitution. Why does God allow this to happen, even if the children are not at fault? Why is it that only a few people help us?”

Listening to her intently and visibly moved, Francis couldn’t offer a direct reply. “Only when we are able to cry are we able to come close to responding to your question,” Francis said. “There are some realities that you can only see through eyes that are cleansed by tears.”

The Pope hugged her and later put aside most of his own prepared speech to respond.

“She is the only one who has put forward a question for which there is no answer and she was not even able to express it in words but rather in tears,” he said.

“Why do children suffer?” the Argentine Pope said, speaking in his native Spanish, his words translated by an aide from his native Spanish into English for the crowd of about 30,000 young people. “I invite each one of you to ask yourselves, ‘Have I learned how to weep, how to cry when I see a hungry child, a child on the street who uses drugs, a homeless child, an abandoned child, an abused child, a child that society uses as a slave’?” he said.

“Those on the margins cry. Those who have fallen by the wayside cry. Those who are discarded cry,” he said. “But those who are living a life that is more or less without need, we don’t know how to cry.”

A steady rain from tropical storm Amang that forced Francis to cut short his visit to Tacloban on Saturday fell on the crowd, but it didn’t seem to dampen spirits of Filipinos who streamed into the capital for Francis’ final day.

The United Nations says 1.2 million children live on the streets in the Philippines. According to the Child Protection Network Foundation, 35.1 percent of children were living in poverty in 2009, the last year such data was available.
‘Women have much to tell us’

Francis also noted there were more men than women in the crowd at the football field and that it was a little girl who was able to move everyone.

“Women have much to tell us in today’s society. At times we are too ‘machista’ and don’t allow room for women,” he said, using the Spanish term for male chauvinist. The crowd cheered.

“But women are capable of seeing things with a different angle from us, with a different eye, and pose questions that we men are not able to understand … so when the next pope comes to Manila, let’s please have more women among you,” he said. TMM