Do not let fear dictate your response to “the poor, the rejected, the refugee, the asylum seeker”, Pope Francis urged the Faithful at Mass on Sunday in St Peter’s Basilica.
Speaking during a service to celebrate the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, where thousands of Catholics from more than 60 countries gathered, the Pope said: "The sin is to allow these fears to determine our responses, to limit our choices, to compromise respect and generosity, to feed hostility and rejection".
The Pope stressed that while being concerned about the impact of migration is not a sin, but in fact a natural human reaction, he said the sin was to "refuse to encounter the other, the different, the neighbour, when this is in fact a privileged opportunity to encounter the Lord".
According to the United Nations, an estimated 258 million people are living outside the country of their birth. The number includes 26 million refugees and asylum seekers, who were forced to flee their homelands because of war or persecution.
Sixty of the migrants and refugees carried their homeland's national flags into the basilica before the Mass and hundreds wore the national dress of their countries, including many of the people who read the prayers of the faithful and brought up the gifts at the offertory during the multilingual Mass.
In his homily at the Mass, Pope Francis reflected on Jesus' response to the disciples who asked him where he lived. "Come and you will see," Jesus tells them, inviting them into a relationship where they would welcome and get to know each other.
"His invitation 'Come and see!' is addressed today to all of us, to local communities and to new arrivals," the Pope said. "It is an invitation to overcome our fears so as to encounter the other, to welcome, to know and to acknowledge him or her."
For the migrants and refugees, he said, that includes learning about and respecting the laws and customs of their host countries. "It even includes understanding their fears and apprehensions for the future," he added.
For people in the host countries, he said, it means welcoming newcomers, opening oneself "without prejudices to their rich diversity," understanding their hopes, fears and vulnerabilities and recognising their potential.
"It is not easy to enter into another culture, to put oneself in the shoes of people so different from us, to understand their thoughts and their experiences," the Pope said. That is one reason why "we often refuse to encounter the other and raise barriers to defend ourselves".
People in host countries may be afraid that newcomers "will disturb the established order [or] will 'steal' something they have long laboured to build up," he said. And the newcomers have their own fears "of confrontation, judgment, discrimination, failure."
The Pope’s comments came just days after several Catholic organisations in the US criticised words used by the American President Donald Trump at a meeting on immigration last Thursday.
According to reports, the president referred to some African countries in a derogatory manner and made comments about the nationalities of immigrants the US would welcome and those it would not.
A US-based organisation representing African American Catholics said they “strongly condemned” the comments made by Trump. In a statement on their website they said: “As people of faith, concerned with the dignity of all God’s people, we deplore such racist and hateful speech.”
Jeanne Atkinson, Executive Director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, said it was "especially appalling" that the President "graphically enunciated the contempt he feels for people in struggling nations" during a week when the Catholic Church in the US was marking National Migration Week.
"We call on the president to apologise to the people of all the nations he slandered and to the American people," Atkinson said. "We ask members of Congress and other leaders to denounce these slurs. They do not reflect who we are as Americans."
President Trump has denied using the language reported.
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