plight 復習
フランシスコ・ローマ法王は24日、サンピエトロ大聖堂で開催されたクリスマスイブのミサで、紛争に巻き込まれ貧困で苦しんでいる子供たちに寄り添うメッセージを送りました。
In Christmas Message, Pope Laments Children in War, Poverty
Pope Francis urged Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus by thinking about the plight of today's children, bemoaning how some must escape bombs or flee in migrant boats and how others are prevented from being born at all.
Francis celebrated a somber Christmas Eve Mass in a packed St. Peter's Basilica, processing to the altar behind cardinals draped in golden vestments as the Sistine Chapel choir sang "Gloria" and the church bells rang out across Rome.
Francis has spent much of the year denouncing the Islamic extremist violence that has driven Christians from Mideast communities that date to the time of Christ. He has also demanded Europe in particular do more to welcome refugees, saying Jesus himself was a migrant who deserved more than being born in a manger. And he has called out the wasteful ways of the wealthy when children and the poor die of hunger every day.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/pope-celebrates-christmas-eve-mass-year-peace-pleas-44386795
取り上げる単語は"plight"です。
『ジーニアス英和辞典』第4版(大修館)で調べてみると、「(通例悪い)状態、苦境、窮地」という意味があることが分かりました。
また、LDOCEでは、"a very bad situation that someone is in"とありました。
つまり、「今日の子供達が直面している苦境」と解釈することができ、ここでの苦境は、内戦や紛争、貧困、亡命などを指しています。(Akim)
