Vatican, 27 August, 2023 / 8:25 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis said on Sunday we are called to act like Jesus and cannot be indifferent to the situations that lead people, especially adolescents, into drug addiction.
“Behind every addiction there are concrete experiences, stories of loneliness, inequality, exclusion, lack of integration,” he said. “Faced with these situations, we cannot be indifferent.”
“The Lord Jesus stopped, became close, healed wounds,” the pope said in a message to toxicologists Aug. 27 for the 60th International Congress of Forensic Toxicologists in Rome Aug. 27–31.
“In the style of his closeness,” he continued, “we too are called to act, to stop before situations of fragility and pain, to know how to listen to the cry of loneliness and anguish, to bend down to lift and bring back to new life those who fall into the bondage of drugs
Francis underlined in his message that it is often teens and young adults who fall into addiction, especially in a society in which they are “deprived of points of reference” during a delicate phase in their lives “characterized by significant changes at the physical, emotional, and social levels.”
