Church must ‘mother’ migrants

Pope Francis has said that the Church must be “a mother for migrants”, writes Hannah Roberts.

Speaking at the Seventh World Congress for the Pastoral Care of Migrants in Rome, Francis said that those seeking a new life must be welcomed and shown solidarity. He lamented that many migrants arriving in a new land “experience disappointment, distress and loneliness, and I would add, marginalisation”. For these new arrivals, he said, the Church must be “a mother without limits and without borders”.

On his first trip off the Italian mainland, Pope Francis chose the refugee island of Lampedusa and spoke of “the globalisation of indifference” towards migrants.

Reasons for migration today ranged from inequality, poverty and overpopulation, to disasters caused by climate change, wars and persecution, he told delegates at the Pontifical Urban University.

Migration caused difficulties in the countries of origin such as a “brain drain” and the risk of marriages failing, while in the receiving countries there were other difficulties “in integrating and learning to respect the social and cultural conventions”, he said.