World Migrant and Refugee Day Towards an ever larger “We”… but in the age of global rejections
This World Day was created in the context of the Catholic Church to spiritually and operationally call the followers of Jesus to mercy towards the least and precedes historically those established by the UN for Migrants (17 January) and for Refugees (20 June).
CLEAR AND IMPASSIONED WORDS FROM POPE FRANCIS TO MARK THE 107TH WORLD DAY OF MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES
“In the encyclical letter Brothers All I expressed a concern and a wish, which still occupy an important place in my heart: ‘Once the health crisis has passed, the worst reaction would be to fall back even further into a feverish consumerism and new forms of selfish self-protection. Heaven forbid that in the end there should be no more ‘others’ but only ‘us’.
Pope Francis encourages us to persevere lucidly in the dynamic construction of the ‘we’: “The present time, however, shows us that the ‘we’ willed by God is broken and fragmented, wounded and disfigured. And this occurs especially in moments of greatest crisis, as now with the pandemic. Closed and aggressive nationalism (cf. Brothers All, 11) and radical individualism (cf. ibid., 105) crumble or divide the we, both in the world and within the Church. And the highest price is paid by those who can most easily become the others: foreigners, migrants, the marginalised, who inhabit the existential peripheries.”
HOW HORRIFIED WE ARE THESE DAYS BY THE SHOCKING IMAGES OF AMERICAN AGENTS ON HORSEBACK AT THE BORDER WITH MEXICO WHIPPING BACK MIGRANTS TRYING TO CROSS THE BORDER
NOT TO MENTION THE REJECTIONS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, THE BALKAN ROUTE AND THE ATLANTIC ROUTE TO SPAIN!
What are the consequences of politics for human beings?
At the end of it all, there is always a moral choice
WE PUT JUSTICE AND RESPONSIBILITY INTO CIRCULATION
Our Unit is also directly involved in paths inspired by the message of Pope Francis
Towards a greater ‘us’