Young people should resist the temptations of corruption which affects all areas of life including the Vatican, Pope Francis said today.
Answering a series of questions posed to him at the Kasarani stadium in Nairobi, Francis also warned against tribalism and said a lack of education and jobs was fuelling radicalisation.
Speaking without a prepared text, the Pope said that corruption “is something that eats us inside. It is sugar: we like it, it’s easy”.
Francis added: "Each time when we accept a bribe and we put it in our pockets, we destroy our hearts and personalities and we destroy our country. Please don’t develop that taste for that sugar which is called corruption."
The Pope said that when they die all corrupt people leave behind is the the lack of good that could have been done.
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“It will remain in those who suffer, in those children who suffer, because through your corruption you will have caused their suffering. Corruption is not a path to life,” he told thousands of young people and included the president of the country, Uhuru Kenyatta.
Francis also called for an end to tribalism, a problem which erupted during Kenya’s disputed elections in 2008 and is still a raw issue.
The Pope asked all those present in the stadium to hold hands and say “we are all a nation” in a symbolic gesture against tribalism.
On the radicalisation of young people, the Pope urged those present to ask why people “leave lives behind in order to learn how to kill. This is a question you must pose to all people in authority”.
Francis said without opportunities for education or work young people can be lead into extremism.
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"If a young person has no work then what future awaits him or her and that is where the idea of being seduced and recruited comes in,” the Pope explained.
"It is a social danger, which is beyond us and the country. Because it depends on an international system that is unjust. That has the economy where the person is not at the centre, but rather the God of money.”
He urged those present to do what they can to “bring them back” and to speak with “tenderness, understanding and love and with great patience.”
The Pope suggested they should be invited to “watch football, to walk with you, to be together in your group. Don’t allow them remain on their own. That is what comes to me now spontaneously".
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