VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Monday criticized abortion as evidence of a "throwaway culture" that wastes people as well as food, saying such a mentality is a threat to world peace.
Francis also urged better respect for migrants and denounced the persecution of Christians in Asia, Africa and the Middle East in his global survey of world crises delivered to diplomats accredited to the Holy See.
Saying hunger is a threat to world peace, he noted that not only food but human beings themselves are often discarded as unnecessary.
"We cannot be indifferent to those suffering from hunger, especially children, when we think of how much food is wasted every day in many parts of the world immersed in what I have often termed 'the throwaway culture,'" Francis said.
That culture, he said, also affects the unborn child.
"For example, it is frightful even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day," he said. Francis has generally limited his exhortations about abortion, saying church teaching is well known and that he prefers to speak less about the church's moralizing rules and more about its positive, welcoming message.
