Grand Chancellor speaks at Summit on Children’s Rights in the Vatican
Today the international summit convened by Pope Francis to give voice to the rights of minors through eight comparison tables with Nobel laureates, world leaders, professors, writers, economists and religious personalities was held in the Apostolic Palace.
Attending the meeting, which was opened and closed by Pope Francis, were leading figures such as Queen Rania of Jordan, former US vice president Al Gore, Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani, former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and Senator for Life Liliana Segre.
The Grand Chancellor of the Sovereign Order of Malta, Riccardo Paternò di Montecupo, took the floor during the panel on ‘Children’s Right to a Healthy Food Environment’, highlighting the tragic situation of 473 million children affected by conflict. “These are incredible numbers when you consider that 20% of the world’s children live in these areas. The numbers vary and often differ but, according to some sources, some 11,000 children died in Gaza during the recent war, an average of 40 children a day,” Riccardo Paternò di Montercupo said.
The Grand Chancellor then recalled that the Sovereign Order of Malta has always been at the forefront in looking after “the birth, nutrition and education of children, with a long history of providing healthcare through the clinics it manages in Africa (Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin, Cameroon, Togo, Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo) and also in Europe”. A tradition of care that also has a prime example in Bethlehem; since 1989 the Holy Family Hospital, a maternity hospital run by the Order of Malta, has registered over 100,000 births, offering a fundamental service in the region. Since May 2024, together with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Order of Malta has been delivering some 300 tons of food for thousands of families in Gaza, while it hopes to soon launch a healthcare service.
Paternò di Montecupo then stressed that the Order of Malta is present in the most difficult contexts where it becomes essential to provide healthcare in a broad sense, with psychosocial support for the most vulnerable – women and children – such as in the Nexus programme, active in Ukraine since 2023 thanks to Malteser International. “Conflicts leave children with situations of violent trauma with the risk of long-term if not life-long effects, but there is also the condition of children without families, interrupting an evolutionary history. This is happening in Ukraine and also in Gaza with the well-known consequences. Who will look after these children? Who will deal with their psychological traumas, their health, their interrupted education? We live in a context that does not accept indecision,” concluded the Grand Chancellor, reaffirming his readiness to respond to a common appeal, as a Christian community, in favour of children, and thanking the Holy Father for having listened to the Order of Malta.
