This is Jorge Mario Bergoglio
Also called Pope Francis, an unwavering voice for the migrant and refugee
"The grave danger is to disown our neighbors. When we do so, we deny their humanity and our own humanity without realizing it; we deny ourselves, and we deny the most important Commandments of Jesus."
Pope Francis -- born Jorge Mario Bergoglio -- was the son of a refugee. His father fled Italy to escape the fascists in 1929.
He was the first pope to come from the Americas, the first to come from the southern hemisphere, and the first Jesuit pope. He had a lot to say about migrants and refugees, and specifically the Christian responsibility to care for them, to welcome them, and to serve them.
He laid it out like this:
“Our shared response may be articulated by four verbs:
* to welcome,
* to protect,
* to promote, and
* to integrate.”
The first trip of his papacy was to visit the Italian island of Lampedusa, where he threw a wreath in the sea to honor the lives of lost migrants, then held mass on an altar made from the remains of a migrant boat. He did this, he said, to “re-awaken our conscience.”
He visited Ciudad Juárez on the Mexican border with the US and held mass and prayed for the migrants who had died on their journeys.
He wrote letters of encouragement to people ministering to migrants and refugees.
He visited the Greek island of Lesbos, where Syrian refugees were trying to get access to the EU, and brought 12 Muslim refugees back to Italy with him on his plane.
He often spoke to the powers of the world and chastised them for failing to care for the vulnerable, and migrants and refugees specifically. He had hard words in particular for the EU and the United States, and for the inhumane policies we often created and then enforced.
Those who worked closely with Francis said that the issue was one he addressed, thought about, and prayed about “daily.”
A quote from the pope: “It needs to be said clearly: There are those who systematically work by all means to drive away migrants, and this, when done knowingly and deliberately, is a grave sin.”
And here’s a prayer from Pope Francis, on the 110th World Day of Migrants and Refugees in 2024:
God, Almighty Father,
we are your pilgrim Church
journeying towards the Kingdom of heaven.
We live in our homeland,
but as if we were foreigners.
Every foreign place is our home,
yet every native land is foreign to us.
Though we live on earth,
our true citizenship is in heaven.
Do not let us become possessive
of the portion of the world
you have given us as a temporary home.
Help us to keep walking,
together with our migrant brothers and sisters,
toward the eternal dwelling you have prepared for us.
Open our eyes and our hearts
so that every encounter with those in need
becomes an encounter with Jesus, your Son and our Lord.
Amen.
For my Christian brothers and sisters, one thing our brother Pope Francis saw with clear eyes and demanded of those who follow Jesus was that our response to the immigrant and refugee must always be “humane, just and fraternal."
They are human, made in the image of God, and must be treated as such.
They should be treated in a way that is just, not with corrupted pragmatism or injustice.
And “fraternal”… they are our brothers and sisters, and should and must be treated like our family as they flee war, starvation, economic collapse, and persecution.
Pope Francis has now made that final migration into a country where he will be welcomed with open arms. I’m thankful for his encouragement to all of us to provide open arms to refugees here in our own homeland.
Sources:
An overview of Pope Francis, immigrants and refugees.
His message and prayer on the 110th World Day of Migrants and Refugees in 2024.
His general audience speech in 2024.
Thank you for highlighting the Pope's passion for migrants. A timely message, for sure.