The late Pope Francis, whose passing last week is being mourned by Christians throughout the world, will be remembered for his legacy as a leader who pushed for social and economic justice.
The pontiff took several opportunities to raise the issue of leprosy—not just as a disease of the past, but as a present struggle for millions of people.
Where earlier popes had referred to leprosy as a ‘sin’, Pope Francis called on us to ‘collaborate with people affected by leprosy, treating them fully as people, recognising them as the key protagonists in their struggle to participate in fundamental human rights to live as fully-fledged members of the community.’
Francis argued that developed societies had become ‘accustomed to looking the other way, passing by, ignoring situations until they affect us directly’. As a neglected tropical disease, Hansen’s disease has been easy for wealthy countries to ignore as it disproportionately impacts impoverished communities.
On World Leprosy Day in 2023, Pope Francis called on us to ‘renew our commitment to building an inclusive society that leaves no one at the margins.’ While a Multi-Drug Therapy blister pack can cure leprosy, an inclusive society is needed to cure lepraphobia.
Perhaps most curiously, in the same World Leprosy Day speech, Pope Francis called on Christian communities to allow themselves to be evangelised by people affected by leprosy. But what could it mean to be open to this ‘evangelism’?
Francis goes on to state that persons affected by leprosy should ‘be at the forefront of efforts for their full integration’. People with leprosy are not merely beneficiaries of Christian charity, according to Francis’s views, but rather, they are ‘the key protagonists’, the ones we rally behind and in support of.
Leprosy Mission Australia’s support of disabled people’s organisations, self-help groups, and leprosy friendly villages are a great example of a development model that makes people affected by leprosy the key protagonists in their struggle for change. When Christian communities are open to being evangelised by these leaders, ground-up change in stigma, screening, and treatment is possible.
