The Vatican has announced a new initiative by Latin American churches to help the millions of refugees fleeing the political crisis in Venezuela.
When presenting the new migrants initiative at a press conference on Monday, Vatican officials steered clear of commenting on the causes of the refugee crisis instead concentrating on what can be done to help.
Eight bishops’ conferences, co-ordinated by the Holy See’s migrants section, have developed a plan to offer practical assistance including offering shelter, legal assistance, access to education and local information about the countries the new arrivals find themselves in.
The initiative is a response to Pope Francis’s call to “welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants”, and includes the bishops’ conferences from the Pope’s home country of Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Chile and Paraguay.
More than 4 million Venezuelans - around 10 per cent of the population - have fled the country where the economy has contracted by 30 per cent, under the leadership of Socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
With hyperinflation soaring out of control, people have been left without enough money to buy food, and health services have collapsed, while Mr Maduro, has tried to cling to office by cracking down on political opponents and expanding his powers.
It has meant that Venezuela, for many years a country that played host to refugees in Latin America, is now seeing a mass departure of its citizens.
The Holy See has tried to pay a mediatory role in the crisis encouraging free and fair elections, while the country’s bishops have called for an uprising of Venezuelans as a “sign of moral health”.
The focus, Fr Michael Czerny told journalists, should be on the “people in need” rather than whether it was caused by a “hurricane, earthquake or tornado”. Fr Czerny is undersecretary at the Section for Refugees and Migrants in the recently created Vatican department for the Promotion of Integral Human Development. This section reports directly to the Pope rather than the cardinal prefect of the dicastery and is in keeping with the top priority that the Jesuit Pope has made of care for migrants.
Fr Czerny presented the initiative alongside fellow undersecretary at the section, Fr Fabio Baggio, who also stressed they were not becoming involved in the causes of the crisis in Venezuela. “We do not get into these questions: the Venezuelan bishops and the Holy See have already expressed their views on the matter,” he explained.
Fr Arturo Sosa, the Superior General of the Jesuits who is from Venezuela, pointed out that between 2016 and 2017, around one and a half million of his fellow countrymen had left the country and he stressed that Europe should see youthful immigrants as a gift, since many European populations are ageing.
Fr Czerny, also a Jesuit, told the Tablet that an important factor in helping migrants was providing good local information so that they did not become vulnerable to human traffickers.
The initiative, “Bridges of Solidarity”, will be funded by the local bishops’ conferences: it is costing €400,000 this year and will cost the same amount the year after.
PICTURE: People are seen in Caracas, Venezuela, May 20. (CNS photo/Adriana Loureiro, Reuters)
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