(Vatican Radio) As Pope Francis makes a new appeal for more openness and solidarity towards migrants, the International Director of Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), Father Tom Smolich, says the Pope's remarks are not just calling for a different approach towards refugees and migrants but are also stressing the importance of a face-to-face encounter with migrants to quell the fears felt by many people towards them. Father Smolich was interviewed by Susy Hodges.Listen to the interview with Father Tom Smolich of Jesuit Refugee Service: Pope Francis' appeal during his Wednesday general audience for more solidarity towards migrants came the day after residents of a town on Italy’s Adriatic coast formed a blockade to prevent the arrival of 12 female migrants, one of them pregnant, who were to have been housed in a local hostel.The Pope's remarks on migration also came on the heels of a new UN report saying that the Mediterranean Sea crossings by migrants trying to r...
(Vatican Radio) As Pope Francis makes a new appeal for more openness and solidarity towards migrants, the International Director of Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), Father Tom Smolich, says the Pope's remarks are not just calling for a different approach towards refugees and migrants but are also stressing the importance of a face-to-face encounter with migrants to quell the fears felt by many people towards them. Father Smolich was interviewed by Susy Hodges.
Listen to the interview with Father Tom Smolich of Jesuit Refugee Service:
Pope Francis' appeal during his Wednesday general audience for more solidarity towards migrants came the day after residents of a town on Italy’s Adriatic coast formed a blockade to prevent the arrival of 12 female migrants, one of them pregnant, who were to have been housed in a local hostel.
The Pope's remarks on migration also came on the heels of a new UN report saying that the Mediterranean Sea crossings by migrants trying to reach Europe have been three times deadlier this year than in 2015. The report estimated that one out of every 47 people attempting the crossing from North Africa to Italy during 2016 has died at sea.
Father Smolich said he “fully agreed” with the Pope when he said that putting up walls and barriers to try to stop migrants and refugees from coming to richer nations only encourages the criminal trafficking of these increasingly desperate people.
Political leaders are doing their best to fan the flames
Stressing that it is our “Christian duty and Christian love “to do something different" when it comes to our treatment of migrants, Father Smolich said he regretted that a number of political leaders across the world “are doing their best to fan the flames” of fear and prejudice towards migrants and refugees.
Asked for his reaction to the incident where residents in an Italian town formed a blockade to stop a group of female migrants from being housed in a local hostel, the JRS Director said Pope Francis is stressing that if people in Europe or elsewhere actually get to meet a migrant face-to-face... “to encounter one another as human beings”... then most of those fears and prejudice towards them can evaporate.
When they (the migrants) are perceived “as the other, the force, the enemy, then the people blockade, people are frightened,” he said.
Father Smolich concluded by saying that “all of us” need to respond to “this human crisis” of migration and refugees and if we spoke out more about this and lobbied our political leaders to tackle this issue and show more compassion, then the leaders in turn could not “get away with doing things (on the migration issue) that a lot of people are not particularly happy about.”
Pope Francis waves while traveling by boat in Venice, Italy, for a meeting with young people at the Basilica della Madonna della Salute on April 28, 2024. Earlier in the day he met with inmates at a women's prison. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).Pope Francis opened his one-day visit to Venice on Sunday morning with a meeting with female inmates where he reaffirmed the importance of fraternity and human dignity, noting that prison can be a place of new beginnings. "A stay in prison can mark the beginning of something new, through the rediscovery of the unsuspected beauty in us and in others, as symbolized by the artistic event you are hosting and the project to which you actively contribute," the pope said to the female inmates gathered in the intimate courtyard of the Women's Prison on the Island of Giudecca. Pope Francis left the Vatican by helicopter at approximately 6:30 in the mo...
Pope Francis prays in front of the tomb of St. Mark the Evangelist inside St. Mark's Basilica in Venice on April 28, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 09:35 am (CNA).Pope Francis had a full slate of events Sunday during his day trip to Venice, a trip that tied together a message of unity and fraternity with the artistic patrimony of a city that has been a privileged place of encounter across the centuries. "Faith in Jesus, the bond with him, does not imprison our freedom. On the contrary, it opens us to receive the sap of God's love, which multiplies our joy, takes care of us like a skilled vintner, and brings forth shoots even when the soil of our life becomes arid," the pope said to over 10,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Mark's Square. Framing his homily during the Mass on the theme of unity, one of the central points articulated throughout several audiences spread across the morning, Pope Francis reminded Christians: "Remaining ...
Prayer house at San Simeone, Italy, September 2012. / Credit: Courtesy of Ricostruttori nella preghieraRome, Italy, Apr 28, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).Across Italy there are houses of prayer run by the Ricostruttori (Reconstructors) community, a Catholic movement dedicated to people who are far from the Church but attracted to spirituality, particularly Eastern meditation and Buddhist practices. The Reconstructors was founded in 1978 by Jesuit Father Gian Vittorio Cappelletto. "During the postconciliar period, the Church was faced with the need for new forms of evangelization and apostolate, to reach out to people who were drifting away," Don Roberto Rondanina, priest and superior of the Ricostruttori, explained to CNA. "It was a time when Eastern meditation, Hinduism, Buddhism, the New Age ... were beginning to spread in Europe." "Father Cappelletto, who lived in Turin, sought to understand the meaning of this 'flight to the East' and felt the need to find new forms of sp...