Pope Francis is challenging French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty.
“May we let ourselves be moved by the stories of so many of our unfortunate brothers and sisters who have the right both to emigrate and not to emigrate, and not become closed in indifference,” Francis said. “In the face of the terrible scourge of the exploitation of human beings, the solution is not to reject but to ensure, according to the possibilities of each, an ample number of legal and regular entrances.
“Those who risk their lives at sea do not invade, they look for welcome, for life” he said. “As for the emergency, the phenomenon of migration is not so much a short-term urgency, always good for fueling alarmist propaganda, but a reality of our times." History’s first Latin American pope has made the plight of migrants a priority of his 10-year pontificate. For his first trip as pope, he traveled to Lampedusa to honor migrants who had drowned while attempting to cross the sea.
“It is a very beautiful opportunity for us,” said Francky Domingo, who is part of a Marseille-based association representing migrants seeking official identification documents. “We really want the pope to be our spokesperson to the politicians because the European policy on migration is very, very repressive for us migrants.”
In his remarks, Francis also repeated his opposition to euthanasia, which he has long decried as a symptom of a “throwaway culture” which treats the elderly and infirm as dispensable. Listing euthanasia as a “social evil," he criticized supporters of assisted suicide as providing “false pretenses of a supposedly dignified and ‘sweet’ death that is more ‘salty’ than the waters of the sea.”
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Pope Francis insists Europe doesn't have a migrant emergency and challenges countries to open portsPope Francis is challenging French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty.
Read more »
Pope Francis insists Europe doesn't have a migrant emergency and challenges countries to open portsPope Francis is challenging French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty
Read more »
Pope Francis insists Europe doesn't have a migrant emergency and challenges countries to open portsPope Francis is challenging French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty.
Read more »
Pope Francis insists Europe doesn't have a migrant emergency and challenges countries to open portsPope Francis is challenging French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty.
Read more »
Pope Francis insists Europe doesn't have a migrant emergency and challenges countries to open portsPope Francis is challenging French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty.
Read more »
Pope Francis insists Europe doesn’t have a migrant emergency and challenges countries to open portsPope Francis challenged French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty, insisting Saturday that the continent isn’t facing a migration “emergency” but rather a long-term reality that governments must deal with humanely.
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