Pope tells Vodafone to ‘promote development'

(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis met with the directors of the ‘Gruppo Vodafone’ in a private audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on Wednesday, telling them to ‘be constructive’ and make religious text available to more people.

The Fondazione Vodafone is promoting an initiative called ‘Instant Schools for Africa’, which aims to provide online educative resources to young people on the African continent.

Pope Francis expressed his appreciation of the initiative and said it promotes “a more inclusive and familial world capable of offering development opportunities to people in social groups at risk of exclusion”.

He suggested such initiatives should take care “to supply young people also with some notions of method, so that they learn not only to use instruments but to use them as instruments, becoming capable of using them more freely and critically”.

The Pope also expressed his desire that “among the resources offered to young people, there be access to the sacred texts of various religions in different languages. This would be a beautiful sign of attention to the religious dimension, so rooted in the African peoples, and of encouragement for interreligious dialogue.”

In conclusive off-the-cuff remarks, he added, “I really like what I’ve heard [about this project] – it’s constructive – and nowadays there is a need to be constructive, to do things which promote human advancement and not only to see bombs fall on innocent people, children, sick people, and entire cities. Build, and not destroy!”

Watch a video-report of Pope Francis audience with directors of Vodafone: