Pope Francis Moved by Little Girl Who Asked: ‘Why does God let Children Suffer?

Pope Francis was humbly moved by a 12-year old girl who posed a question he could not answer during his ‘Encounter with the Youth’ event at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), Sunday morning.

The pontiff spent almost half of his day at the UST, the oldest Catholic university that has deep-rooted ties with the Vatican, to meet young people and provide them some words of wisdom and inspiration.

One of the five youths that was given a rare opportunity to speak to the Pope was Glyzelle Palomar, a former street kid, who broke in tears while sharing her story to the Pope.

Palomar talked about the kind of suffering she and other kids like her was made to experience, like getting exposed to illegal drugs and prostitution at such a young age, prompting her to ask the Pope: “Why does God let children suffer?”

Pope Francis praised the intelligence in Palomar’s question, even though he admitted he had no answer for it, and this made him wonder why there was only a small representation of women in the audience.

“Women have much to tell us in today’s society. Sometimes we are too ‘machistas’ and we don’t allow room for the woman. But women can see things from a different angle from us, with a different eye. Women are able to pose questions we, men, are not able to understand,” the pontiff said in his native Spanish.

“Look out for this fact today: she, Glyzelle, is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer. And she was not able to express it in words but, rather, in tears,” he added.

The Pope then asked in jest for more women, girls, to show up and be represented in future papal visits to Manila.

The wise man in Pope Francis though would not let such questions go totally unanswered. He said perhaps the appropriate reply could be found also in tears, which are devoid of what he referred to as “worldly compassion.”

“Only when we, too, can cry about the things just said are we able to come close to replying to that question. Why do children suffer so much? Why do children suffer? When the heart is able to ask yourself and cry, then we can understand something.”

There is a worldly compassion, which is useless… a compassion that makes us put our hands in our pockets and give something to the poor,” he said.

Pope Francis noted that if Jesus Christ had that kind of compassion, one’s idea of caring for the others would have stopped at just giving something to the needy, without even bothering to understand what the poor person is going through.

“It was only when Jesus was able to cry that He understood something in our lives. Dear young boys and girls, today’s world doesn’t know how to cry. [But the marginalized] people, those left to one side, are crying. Those who are discarded are crying. But we don’t understand much about these people in need. Certain realities of life we only see through eyes cleansed by our tears,” he said.

The Pope then implored the people not to forget the great example set by Palomar, to learn how to weep for the suffering of others, and to be courageous about it.

“If you don’t learn how to cry, you cannot be a good Christian. This is a challenge. When they posed this question to us—why children suffer, why this or that tragedy occurs in life—our response must be either silence or a word that is born of our tears. Be courageous, don’t be afraid to cry.” PND (hdc)