#200 Why would God allow children to suffer?

I was asked by some people to address this question after they read about an interview with Pope Francis where he was asked why he thought God would allow children to suffer. The Pope said, "I have no explanation for that.”  

Many people jump on the honesty of the Pope to bash religion or to disrespect him, but I ask people to please not do that. This is a very serious and important subject which I have attempted to address from the Vedic perspective.  

The quotes I have used in this talk; I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. - NKJV 2 Corinthians 12:2  

As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.  Bhagavad-gītā 2.13  

For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain. Bhagavad-gītā 2.20  

As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones. Bhagavad-gītā 2.22  

The caterpillar transports itself from one leaf to another by capturing one leaf before giving up the other. Similarly, according to his previous work, the living entity must capture another body before giving up the one he has. This is because the mind is the reservoir of all kinds of desires.  Bhāgavata Purāṇa 4.29.76-77  

The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas. Thus he takes one kind of body and again quits it to take another.  Bhagavad-gītā 15.8 

The foolish cannot understand how a living entity can quit his body, nor can they understand what sort of body he enjoys under the spell of the modes of nature. But one whose eyes are trained in knowledge can see all this.  Bhagavad-gītā 15.9  

The endeavoring transcendentalists who are situated in self-realization can see all this clearly. But those whose minds are not developed and who are not situated in self-realization cannot see what is taking place, though they may try to. Bhagavad-gītā 15.11  

For one who is not renounced, the threefold fruits of action -- desirable, undesirable and mixed -- accrue after death.  Bhagavad-gītā 18.12  

The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas. Thus he takes one kind of body and again quits it to take another.  Bhagavad-gītā 15.8  

For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. KJV Galatians 6:7  

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?  Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. KJV John 9:1-3  

Even though one is in the renounced order, one who is advanced certainly feels compassion for suffering living entities.  Bhāgavata Purāṇa 5.8.10  CC Ādi 9.42 - "‘It is the duty of every living being to perform welfare activities for the benefit of others with his life, wealth, intelligence and words.’ CC Ādi 9.43 - "‘By his work, thoughts and words, an intelligent man must perform actions which will be beneficial for all living entities in this life and the next.’

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