(Vatican Radio) Official figures show that a record 55,000 migrants, many of them fleeing poverty and wars, have left Germany voluntarily this year - more than twice the number deported. It comes mounting tensions in Europe over the influx of refugees. Listen to the report by Stefan Bos: Data over the period January through November from the Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees shows that tens of thousands of migrants have left the country voluntarily. Most of them went back to the Balkans. Albanians formed the largest group of some 15,000 people followed by about an equal number of people returning to nearby Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia.Germany saw large numbers of people from Balkan nations, who had slim chances of being granted asylum, arrive in early 2015.Yet there are also at least 5,000 migrants who have returned to Iraq and more than 3,000 to Afghanistan, despite reports of ongoing attacks by Islamic militants in those nations, including against...
(Vatican Radio) Official figures show that a record 55,000 migrants, many of them fleeing poverty and wars, have left Germany voluntarily this year - more than twice the number deported. It comes mounting tensions in Europe over the influx of refugees.
Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:
Data over the period January through November from the Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees shows that tens of thousands of migrants have left the country voluntarily.
Most of them went back to the Balkans. Albanians formed the largest group of some 15,000 people followed by about an equal number of people returning to nearby Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia.
Germany saw large numbers of people from Balkan nations, who had slim chances of being granted asylum, arrive in early 2015.
Yet there are also at least 5,000 migrants who have returned to Iraq and more than 3,000 to Afghanistan, despite reports of ongoing attacks by Islamic militants in those nations, including against Christians and moderate Muslims.
GOVERNMENT FUNDING
German authorities revealed Wednesday that the government approved funding for some 55,000 migrants to return to their homelands this year, paving the way for a significant increase in voluntary departures.
That is more than twice the nearly 24,000 who were forcibly deported from Germany.
It comes amid mounting public resentment towards migrants fleeing war and poverty following several attacks linked to Islamic militants, including the recent Christmas Market attack in Berlin that killed 12 people and injured nearly 50 others.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has come under political pressure over her open-doors policy towards refugees as the country registered last year about 900,000 asylum seekers.
While she agree with stricter policies towards migrants, Merkel has made clear she wants Germany to remain a country that provides shelter to the most vulnerable people fleeing war-stricken nations such as Syria.
A patient at the new Misky María Palliative Care Hospital located on the outskirts of Lima, Perú. / Credit: Asociación de las Bienaventuranzas (Association of the Beatitudes)ACI Prensa Staff, May 4, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).In the context of the recent news of the death of Ana Estrada, the first person to request and receive euthanasia in Peru, there is a contrasting story to tell on care for the dying in that country: that of a new Catholic hospital on the outskirts of Lima that provides palliative care, which extends the love of Christ to those in extreme poverty who are in the final stages of their lives.The beginning of the 'Misky María' HospitalIn 2021, Father Omar Sánchez Portillo, a priest known for his extensive charitable work in the district of Lurín (south of Lima) and founder of the Association of the Beatitudes, had the dream of building a center to serve, with the "sweetness of Mary," people in situations of abandonment and extreme poverty who have terminal illnesses...
President Joe Biden presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jesuit Father Greg Boyle on May 3, 2024. / Screenshot/public domainCNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).The White House on Friday announced that Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, the founder of a prominent ministry dedicated to rehabilitating gang-affiliated youth, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside 18 other recipients this afternoon. Boyle, ordained a priest in 1984, founded Homeboy Industries in 1992 while pastor of Dolores Mission, a Catholic church and school in an area that at one time had one of the highest concentrations of gang activity in Los Angeles. Today, Homeboy Industries claims to be the largest gang-intervention program in the United States.The successful ministry, which now operates nationwide, offers training and job skills to those formerly involved in gangs or in jail, as well as case management, tattoo removal, mental health and legal services, and GED completion.Wh...
Father Roger Landry, Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, discusses the protests at Columbia University in New York City on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo" on May 2, 2024. / Credit: EWTN News The World Over / ScreenshotWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 3, 2024 / 17:05 pm (CNA).Father Roger Landry, a Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, said on Thursday that the protests making national headlines at the New York City school are being organized in part by "explicitly communist" outside forces. "There is an instrumentalization of what's going on in Gaza to advance an agenda," he said. "And that is to deconstruct our present world order at which the United States is considered the top of that order."Speaking on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo," Landry said that he had been walking through the encampment nearly daily, conversing with student protesters and other "outside agitators." While he said he believes that many of the protesters we...