Call to maintain refugee outreach

Germany’s Church has criticised new government plans to restrict family reunifications for refugees, and warned against a new wave of “anti-refugee rhetoric”, write Jonathan Luxmoore and Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

“Issues of flight and asylum touch on Christianity’s ethical principles, so we follow political developments in this area with special attention,” explained Archbishop Stefan Hesse of Hamburg, the Bishops’ Conference special representative for refugees. “Some of the refugee policy rhetoric used by politicians is dangerous. Refugees are not ‘problem cases’, but real people.”

The 49-year-old archbishop was reacting to plans by the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel to set up new “transit zones” for asylum applicants and impose a two-year wait for reuniting refugee families.

However, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna told the Kronen Zeitung daily that he could understand Austrians’ fears and shared their concern that terrorists may be crossing Austria with the inflow of refugees. At a press conference he pointed out that the right to family reunification was not an unrestricted right.