A prayer "for discarded women, for used women, for girls who have to sell their dignity to get a job". The Pope asked for it in the homily of the Mass celebrated today at Santa Marta, in which, starting from today's Gospel, he recalled the words of Jesus: "Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery" and "whoever repudiates his wife exposes her to adultery". Women are "what all men lack to be the image and likeness of God", said Francis, according to Vatican news reports: Jesus pronounced strong, radical words that "changed history" because up until that moment woman "was second class", to put it mildly, "she was a slave", "she did not even enjoy full freedom". "And Jesus' doctrine on the woman changes history," the Pope commented, "And it is one thing the woman before Jesus, another thing the woman after Jesus. Jesus dignifies the woman and puts her on the same level as the man because he takes that first word of the Creator, both are 'the image and likeness of God', both; not first the man and then a little lower the woman, no, both. And the man without the woman beside him - whether as mother, as sister, as wife, as workmate, as friend - that man alone is not the image of God'. "In television programmes, in magazines, in newspapers," he denounced, "women are made to be seen as an object of desire, of use," as in a "supermarket". The woman, perhaps in order to sell a certain quality "of tomatoes", becomes precisely an object, "humiliated, without clothes", causing the teaching of Jesus who "dignified" her to fall.We don't have to go 'that far', the Pope pointed out: it also happens 'here, where we live', in 'offices', in 'firms', women are 'the object of that disposable philosophy', like waste material', where they don't even seem to be 'people'. "This is a sin against God the Creator, to reject woman because without her we males cannot be the image and likeness of God," Francis' warning, according to which "there is a fury against woman, an ugly fury. Even without saying it... But how often do girls have to sell themselves as disposable objects to get a job? How many times? 'Yes, father I heard in that country...'. Here in Rome. Do not go far".The Pope then wondered what we would see if we made a 'night pilgrimage' to certain places in the city, where 'so many women, so many migrants, so many non-migrants' are exploited 'as in a market': to these women, he continued, men 'approach not to say: 'Good evening', but 'How much do you cost?' And to those who wash their 'consciences' by calling them 'prostitutes', the Pontiff said: 'You have made her a prostitute, as Jesus says: whoever repudiates exposes her to adultery, because you do not treat the woman well, the woman ends up like that, even exploited, a slave, many times. So it is good to look at these women and think that, in the face of our freedom, they are slaves to this thought of discard'. All this, for the Pope, 'happens here, in Rome, it happens in every city, the anonymous women, the women - we can say - 'without a look' because shame covers the look, the women who do not know how to laugh and many of them do not know, do not know the joy of breast-feeding and of being called mother. But, even in daily life, without going to those places, this ugly thought of rejecting the woman, she is a second-class object". "This passage from the Gospel helps us to think in the market of women, in the market, yes, the trafficking, the exploitation, that is seen; also in the market that is not seen, what is done and not seen. The woman is trampled on because she is a woman," Francis' exhortation. Jesus, the Pope concluded, 'had a mother', he had 'many friends who followed him to help him in his ministry' and to support him. And he found 'so many despised, marginalised, discarded women', whom he lifted up with such 'tenderness', giving them back their dignity.

[Pope Francis, homily s. Martha; https://www.agensir.it/quotidiano/2018/6/15/papa-francesco-a-santa-marta-sfruttare-le-donne-e-peccato-contro-dio/]