Migration threatening ‘humanistic spirit’

The present wave of migration into Europe seems to be “undermining the foundations of that ‘humanistic spirit’ which Europe has always loved and defended”, Pope Francis said on Monday.

He was speaking to ambassadors to the Holy See as revelations regarding the sexual assaults and robberies on hundreds of local women by men said to be migrants in German cities on New Year’s Eve continued to emerge.

Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed more than 1 million mainly Muslim migrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa in 2015, a gesture that was applauded by the Church.

As the scale of the New Year’s Eve attacks on women became clear, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne, German bishops’ conference president Cardinal Reinhard Marx and Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna immediately cautioned against general suspicion of Muslims.

They also insisted there was no place for sexual violence against women in German or Austrian society. They warned against limiting the number of immigrants from conflict areas and cautioned against right-wing populists. Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke, an auxiliary in Hamburg, suggested it was possible that the “self-confident manner of western women” was not to Muslim men’s taste.

Cardinal Woelki said he had received “hundreds” of hate letters. He quoted one that said, “Well, Woelki, that’s what happens. Now you can see what kind of soup you and your refugee Chancellor have landed us in with your culture of welcome!”

He said his reply was: “A great deal of what I have been hearing here and following in the social media in the last few days by way of incitement and blank hatred is despicable and irresponsible. It violates human dignity, which was ignored in the most shameful way by marauding hordes of men.”

However, the spokesperson of the German Council of ex-Muslims, Iranian-born Mina Ahadi, warned there are mosques in Germany where imams preach that women do not have the same rights as men. “We must defend our freedom and culture. This is Europe and Christian values are valid here,” she underlined.

The Pope has made the plight of migrants and refugees a key priority of his papacy and has urged Europe to welcome migrants often fleeing war, persecution and poverty. He told the ambassadors on Monday: “There should be no loss of the values and principles of humanity, respect for the dignity of every person, mutual subsidiarity and solidarity, however much they may prove, in some moments of history, a burden difficult to bear.” He accepted, however, that the “massive number of arrivals appear to be overburdening the system painstakingly built on the ashes of the Second World War”.

He said there were “cultural implications” to migration related to religious affiliation, explaining that extremism and fundamentalism “find fertile soil not only in the exploitation of religion for purposes of power, but also in the vacuum of ideals and the loss of identity – particularly religious identity – which marks the so-called West”. On the other hand new migrants, the Pope said, have a responsibility to respect the “values, traditions and laws” of the country that welcomes them.

He called on the international community to find a co-ordinated response to migration that required both planning for the long term and an understanding of why people fled their countries.