Pope calls rejection of immigrants ‘grave sin’, calls for safe routes

Pope Francis said Wednesday that in the face of the migration drama, “more restrictive laws” or “militarization of borders” are useless and that turning away migrants “is a grave sin.”

During a catechism to a large audience on Wednesday, Francis reflected on migrants and “current migration routes” that “for many people, too many people, are deadly.”

He recalled that the Mediterranean Sea “had become a cemetery” and that these “dead could have been saved.”

“We need to say clearly: there are those who are systematically working with all their might to repel migrants. And this, when done consciously and responsibly, is a serious sin,” he said.

And that “some deserts, unfortunately, become cemeteries for migrants” and condemned that “even here it is not a natural death.”

“No. Sometimes they are taken out into the desert and abandoned there,” he stressed.

“In the age of satellites and drones, there are migrant men, women and children that no one wants to see. Only God sees them and hears their cries,” he added, recalling the horrific photo of Fathi and Marie, a mother and daughter aged 30 and six respectively, abandoned in the Tunisian desert and found dead.

Pope Francis said migrants should never be found “in these deadly seas and deserts” and he argued that “not through more restrictive laws, not through the militarization of borders, not through rejection” will it be possible to put an end to these things.

The Pope called for the expansion of “safe and legal routes of access for migrants, facilitating the asylum of those fleeing war, violence, persecution and various disasters.”

“We will achieve this by promoting by all means a global governance of migration based on justice, fraternity and solidarity. And by joining forces in the fight against human trafficking to stop the criminal traffickers who mercilessly profit from the suffering of others,” he added.

The Pope also praised “the efforts of the many good Samaritans who do everything they can to save injured and abandoned migrants along the routes of desperate hope on five continents,” such as rescue NGOs in the Mediterranean, citing the Italian organization “Mediterraneo.”

“These brave men and women are a sign of a humanity that refuses to be infected by a perverted culture of indifference and rejection,” he praised.

He asked the faithful if they also prayed for migrants and asked them to join forces “so that the seas and deserts are not cemeteries, but spaces where God can open paths to freedom and fraternity.”