ROME — Pope Francis warned of loan sharks who are exploiting the poverty created by the Chinese coronavirus lockdown to make money off the vulnerable.

In his video-streamed homily at Mass in the Vatican Thursday morning, the pope prayed aloud for the conversion of unscrupulous money-lenders who are profiting from the destitution and desperation caused by the lockdown.

“In many places, one of the effects of this pandemic is that many families find themselves in need, and they are hungry,” Francis said at the beginning Mass, adding that one group of people offering “help” are the loan sharks.

“This is another pandemic, another virus: It is a social pandemic,” he said.

There are many families of day laborers or those who are paid off the books “who cannot work and do not have anything to eat,” he said. “And then the usurers take the little they have.”

Reports suggest that in Italy one of the hardest hit groups are the estimated 3.7 million workers who get paid under the table, since they now find themselves without work but are ineligible for government-funded unemployment benefits. Many, especially in the south, live hand to mouth and have no reserves for a national lockdown that is now well into its second month.

The pope offered prayers for the victims of loan sharks, people who are not working and do not have food to put on the table for their children, while also asking God to convert the hearts of the usurers themselves.

“Let us pray for these families, for their dignity, and let us pray also for the usurers: that the Lord might touch their hearts and convert them,” Francis said.

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