The following are the words spoken by the Holy Father Francis at the end of the World Leaders Summit on Children’s Rights, entitled “Love them and protect them”, organized by the Pontifical Committee for World Children’s Day:

Words of the Holy Father

I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude at the end of this Meeting on children’s rights.

Thanks to you, today the halls of the Apostolic Palace have become an open “observatory” on the reality of childhood all over the world, a childhood that is often wounded, exploited, denied. Your presence, your experience and your compassion have brought to life an observatory and above all a “workshop”: in various thematic groups you have developed proposals for the protection of children’s rights, considering them not as numbers, but as faces.

All this renders glory to God, and we entrust it to Him, so that His Holy Spirit may make it productive and fruitful. Father Faltas said a word, a phrase that I like a lot: “the children are watching us”. And it was also the title of a famous film. Children are watching us: they watch us to see how we go forward in life.

For my part, in order to provide continuity for this commitment and to promote it throughout the Church, I intend to prepare a letter, an Exhortation, I don’t know, dedicated to children.

Thank you all again! Thanks to each and every one of you.