Post date: Nov 28, 2013 4:16:43 PM
Pope Francis talks about issue of high youth unemployment in interview recorded in Vatican City but aired exclusively in his home country of Argentina.
VATICAN CITY (PINO SOLANAS HANDOUT) - Pope Francis took on the issue of high youth unemployment in his first interview aired exclusively in his home country of Argentina on Wednesday (November 27), warning that today's "throwaway culture" had discarded a generation of young Europeans.
A day after issuing an 84-page platform for his eight-month-old papacy that blasted unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny," the pontiff used the interview aired on the TN TV channel to link high European unemployment to its twin problem of neglecting older people who are past their earning prime."Today we are living in unjust international system in which 'King Money' is at the centre. It's a throwaway culture that discards young people as well as its older people. In some European countries, without mentioning names, there is youth unemployment of 40 percent and higher. A whole generation of young people does not have the dignity that is brought by work. What I would tell the youth is to worry about looking after one another and to be conscience of this and to not allow themselves to be thrown away. So that throwaway culture does not continue so that a culture of inclusion is achieved," he said in the interview.
European leaders pledged earlier this month to make fighting youth unemployment a priority but came up with no new ideas to tackle a problem that risks fuelling social unrest.
Nearly 6 million people under the age of 25 are without work in the European Union, with jobless rates among the young at close to 60 percent in Spain andGreece.
Pope Francis' scepticism of free markets and concern about the lack of ethics in finance were shared by his predecessor, Benedict XVI. But Pope Francis' unassuming style and rejection of the traditional trappings of office lend his words particular weight.
Pope Francis said work helped the youth to acquire culture.
"We can't waste or contaminate the water, look after creation. There is ignorance men receive to be transformed into culture with our work, so ignorance turns into culture. That is the experience of human genius, to transform ignorance into culture through science, art, work. Man is the architect of culture. But what happens when man is no longer the architect but starts owning culture. He uses it not to grow or for the good of humanity but for his own benefit."
He added youngsters needed to he offered jobs to help them get by.
"With regards to the experience I had in Buenos Aires, when a youngster is made a constructive proposal they become involved. One has to make proposals and help them forge ahead. But with concrete proposals and the fatherland grows and the dream of the fatherland that Saint Martin of Bolivar had. We have to recover all of that."
Previously archbishop of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis in March became the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years. He is the first South American pope.
Pope Francis has called for a more austere Church that sides with the poor, and has promised to clean up the murky finances of the Vatican bank.
The interview was recorded at the Vatican on November 8.