Pope Francis warned on Sunday (January 27) that a lack of role models within the Catholic Church is driving away young people.
Speaking at a news conference onboard the papal plane, Pope Francis said that he felt pastors were no longer close enough to their communities and also went on to criticize those Catholics who attend mass but fail to uphold a certain moral standard, citing bosses who do not look after their employees.
Francis made the comments while returning to Rome from his visit to Panama, where on Sunday he said an open-air mass before a huge crowd of 700,00 people to wrap up World Youth Day, a Christian jamboree which has been dubbed the ”Catholic Woodstock.”
Francis will next take a three-day trip to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where he will become the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula and say the first Mass in a public venue there.
