Pope Francis said that Catholic lawmakers must strive to “safeguard and enhance within the public sphere those right relationships that allow each person to be treated with the respect, and indeed the love, that is due to him or her,” at an August 25 audience with members of the International Catholic Legislators Network.

The Pope told the group that they should work to build up justice, fraternity, and peace: to care for “the poor, migrants and refugees, the sick and elderly, victims of human trafficking;“ and to “address, in a spirit of solidarity, the many situations of inequality and injustice.”