Pope Francis warned Latin America against legalising drugs yesterday, delving into a hot topic in his home region after celebrating the first public mass of his landmark visit to Brazil.
The Argentine-born pontiff, who has championed the cause of the poor and vulnerable, drew a line against drugs as he met crack addicts and inaugurated a rehab ward at a Rio de Janeiro hospital run by Franciscan monks.
"The scourge of drug trafficking, which favors violence and sows the seeds of suffering and death, requires of society as a whole an act of courage," Francis said as rain fell on the Saint Francis hospital.
"A reduction in the spread and influence of drug addiction will not be achieved by a liberalization of drug use, as is currently being proposed in various parts of Latin America," he said on the third day of his weeklong trip to Brazil for a Catholic youth festival.
Pope Francis greets a man during an inauguration ceremony for a program to provide care to drug addicts at the Hospital Sao Francisco (Saint Francis Hospital) in in Rio de Janeiro yesterday. Pope Francis took an unequivocal stand yesterday against legalisation as a means to fight drug addiction and criticised the trend in Latin America to decriminalise narcotics. In his first public address on the issue, the new pontiff said during visit to a Rio de Janeiro hospital run by Franciscan monks that education was the way to end drug use.
Continue Reading..
