According to TED.com : “A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that individual can be you, says His Holiness Pope Francis in this searing TED Talk delivered directly from Vatican City. In a hopeful message to people of all faiths, to those who have power as well as those who don’t, the spiritual leader provides illuminating commentary on the world as we currently find it and calls for equality, solidarity and tenderness to prevail. “Let us help each other, all together, to remember that the ‘other’ is not a statistic, or a number,” he says. “We all need each other.””

“Pope Francis was elected in March 2013, becoming the first Pope from the Americas and from the Southern hemisphere. He was born in 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, in a family of Italian immigrants. A Jesuit, he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires and then a Cardinal leading the Argentinian church. Upon election as the 266th Pope, he chose Francis as his papal name in reference to Saint Francis of Assisi.”

“A very popular figure who has taken it upon himself to reform the Catholic Church, Pope Francis’s worldview is solidly anchored in humility, simplicity, mercy, social justice, attention to the poor and the dispossessed — those he says “our culture disposes of like waste” — and in a critical attitude towards unbridled capitalism and consumerism. He is a strong advocate of global action against climate change, to which he has devoted his powerful 2015 encyclical, Laudato sì (“Praise be to you”). He invites us to practice “tenderness,” putting ourselves “at the level of the other,” to listen and care. He is committed to interfaith dialogue and is seen as a moral and spiritual authority across the world by many people who aren’t Catholics.”

 

Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone by His Holiness Pope Francis

 

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

——————————————————————————————————–

I look forward to your thoughts and comments!