Pope urges govts to use virus to create fairer world

Pope Francis urged governments on Monday to use coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to create a world that is more ecomically and environmentally just - and where basic health care is guaranteed for all. Francis me appeal in his annual foreign policy dress to ambassors accredited to Holy See, an appointment that was postponed for two weeks after he suffered a bout of sciatic nerve pain that me standing and walking difficult.

Excusing himself for delay, Francis urged governments represented in Apostolic Palace to contribute to global initiatives to provide vaccines to poor and to use pandemic as a whole as a chance to reset what he said was a sick ecomic model that exploits poor and Earth.

"re is need for a kind of new Copernican revolution that can put ecomy at service of men and women, t vice versa," he said, referring to 16th century parigm shift that posited that sun was at centre of universe, t Earth.

He said such an ecomy is "one that brings life t death, one that is inclusive and t exclusive, humane and t dehumanizing, one that cares for environment and does t despoil it."

Francis called for basic health care to be provided to all, ting that those on margins of society and who worked in informal ecomy have been among hardest hit by pandemic, and have fewest social nets needed to survive it.

"Driven by desperation, many have sought or forms of income and risk being exploited through illegal or forced labour, prostitution and various criminal activities, including human trafficking," Francis warned.

In dition to COVID-19 devastation, Francis listed some of areas of particular concern, starting with coup in Myanmar, where Francis visited in 2017.

He called for political leers to be "promptly released as a sign of encourment for a sincere dialogue aimed at good of country.

He called for war in Syria to finally end, ting that 2021 marks its 10th anniversary. He praised recent entry into force of UN treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons and extension of START treaty between US and Russia.

He called for disarmament efforts to extend to conventional and chemical weapons, saying world simply has too many.

He ted that children have suffered from an "educational catastrophe" with closed schools, women have been victims of domestic abuse, faithful have been deprived of chance to worship toger and that all of humanity has been isolated and deprived of close human contact.

"Along with vaccines, fraternity and hope are, as it were, medicine we need in today's world," he said.