As world leaders prepared to meet in Australia on Nov. 15-16 to continue looking at ways to improve the global economy, Pope Francis asked them “not to forget that many lives are at stake” behind their discussions and decisions. The measure of success of the Group of 20 heavily industrialized and emerging-market countries will be found not in statistics but in “real improvements in the living conditions of poorer families and the reduction of all forms of unacceptable inequality,” the pope said. The pope’s message to Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia, host of the G-20 summit, was released on Nov. 11 at the Vatican. “Throughout the world, the G-20 countries included, there are far too many women and men suffering from severe malnutrition, a rise in the number of the unemployed, an extremely high percentage of young people without work and an increase in social exclusion which can lead to criminal activity and even the recruitment of terrorists,” the papal message said.

This article appears in December 1 2014.