Pope Francis has sent a video message to the Movement for a Better World, 70 years after it was founded by Father Riccardo Lombardi, SJ, who was inspired by a speech given by Venerable Pius XII.

Pope Pius “used a word: ‘wildness,” said Pope Francis. “A wild world, which must become more humane, more Christian, but more human, because the Lord is always near to humanity.”

In 2002, Pope St. John Paul II issued a message for the movement’s 50th anniversary.