The times do not favour it. It's not that there are few migrants and refugees to bother about. The difficulty is that they are many and growing.

Welcoming, not blaming

People who are doing it hard, as so many Australians and others are, in a time of gross inequality and economic pressure, readily see migrants and refugees as a cause of their own discontents and turn on them.

In the United States, Great Britain and in Europe we have seen how dangerous this behaviour is, how it can be inflamed by politicians and by social media, and how it threatens peace and civil order.

The same effects of economic pressures, ecological changes and armed conflicts are also driving more people to leave their homes and to seek safety and a decent life.

Many are displaced by war, discrimination and famine in their own nations. Many seek protection in other nations. People displaced in Myanmar and Gaza and Sudan attract the most attention, but are only a few of those fleeing from violence and poverty.

In prosperous times many people in developed nations are sympathetic to refugees and migrants and welcome them into their own societies.

In hard times, however, xenophobia spreads and is exploited by politicians who vilify refugees and demand that the nation be closed to immigrants.

This is notable in the United States and in many European nations, where small radical groups protest violently against immigrants and refugees, as well as against local minority groups. Governments often respond by cutting immigration and excluding refugees.

Australia, which had already adopted punitive measures to prevent people seeking protection, has come under similar pressure.

That is not surprising. People who struggle to find accommodation or to keep work can easily be led to see as threats people coming to Australia. They believe that governments should solve local problems first and only then admit others to Australia.

Although such opinions may not make economic sense and are self-centred, they are understandable.

The conduct of politicians and ideologues who spread false rumours against people from other cultures, stir up violent demonstrations, and depict refugees and immigrants from unfavoured nations as dangerous people who should be locked up, is less forgivable.

Our human family

In these times it is important to plead the cause of refugees.

It is even more important to open our minds and hearts to all the persons who are doing it hard, and not to barrack for some of them while lumping together others as things and not as persons.

As we reflect on the hardships which many people who live in Australia must bear, feel compassion for them, and argue for change in our unequal economy, our hearts should also open to the stories of people who have been forced from their homes and who seek protection and a new life in Australia.

Australians who do it hard and refugees are not competitors but our brothers and sisters.

In hard times it is easy to forget people.

Migrant and Refugee Sunday is a time for remembering. The need to remember and the decencies of remembering are enshrined in war memorials and in phrases such as the one attached to the Holocaust, ‘Lest we forget'.

Remembering is also central to the Abrahamic religions, whether focused on the liberation of the Jews from Egypt, the death and rising of Jesus and the martyrs, or the revelation made to Muhammad.

The need to remember has enriched languages and created alphabets.

In recent weeks the local services in Gaza have emphasised the importance of remembering by taking precious time to gather and publish the names of the 34,000 people known to have been killed in Gaza.

They may no longer be seen as numbers, ciphers in military and strategic calculus, but as persons.

Each has a name, each is unique and precious. They share that dignity with each person who lives with hunger, illness and fear in Gaza, in Mynamar, in Sudan and central America, and with each person who has escaped beyond national borders to seek life for themselves and for their families in other nations.

The call to remember extends also to our personal and national history. For all Australians that includes the immigration to Australia, forced or voluntary, of our ancestors and and the hope of a better life that they nurtured.

For many of us this history included flight from famine in Ireland, from poverty, from religious and ethnic discrimination, or from the effects of war. Our history also extends to all the people whom at different times we have excluded - Asians, Africans, Jews and even our First Peoples.

We all own a history that evokes gratitude, pride and shame. Migrant and Refugee Sunday invites us to think and act generously.

• First published in Eureka Street
• Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services.

By examining "adults and children who currently live outside their country of birth" in every country, the American research centre highlights the overrepresentation of Christians among migrants.

The study defined "migrants" as those living outside their country of birth from 1990 to 2020, regardless of when they left.

During this period, immigration increased significantly. "More than 280 million people, or 3.6% of the world's population, are international migrants," the PRC reported on August 19. Among the total number of migrants, 130 million were Christians in 2020, compared to 80 million Muslims.

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The study reported that Muslims and Jews are migrating in big numbers.

"Pew's latest data - collected in 2020 - also found Muslims account for 29 percent of migrants, although they make up only 25 percent of the world's population" said Stephanie Kramer, Pew's lead researcher.

Jews account for only 0.2 percent of the world's population but for one percent of migrants.

Pew research says Jews are "by far the most likely religious group to have migrated".

A fifth of Jews worldwide live outside their country of birth compared to six percent of Christians, five percent Hindu, four percent Muslims and four percent Buddhist.

Major migration changes

The past three decades have seen migration outpace the global population growth by 83 percent, Pew Research says.

Many reasons are given for migration, though in its latest report Pew found that US migrants are much more likely to have a religious identity than the American-born population in general.

Migrant religious affiliation could significantly impact the religious composition of their destination countries. In the US "immigrants are kind of putting the brakes on secularisation" Pew says.

Selective migration

Pew's study found that migrants often choose to move to countries where their religious identity is already represented and prevalent.

For example, Christians and religiously unaffiliated migrants share the US, Germany and Russia as their top three destinations.

The high rates of Jewish migration can be attributed in part to Israel's Law of Return which grants Jews the right to receive automatic citizenship and make "aliyah", a move to Israel, Kramer explains.

Kramer says overall immigration levels across religious groups have remained fairly stable over time.

Many of the findings in the new report are similar to the 2012 study which Kramer says is relatively unsurprising.

"Even in that older data you can see that religious minorities were so much more likely to leave their country of origin and migrate to a country where their religious identity was more prevalent" she says.

Source

• Religion News Service

At a Mass celebrated Sunday in Budapest, His Holiness called on the Hungarian government — led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and President Katalin Novák, both Christian, neither Catholic — to loosen its stringent border control policies.

Over 50,000 people were present at the Mass, including Orbán and Novák.

The pope said, "We Christians, all of us called by name by the Good Shepherd, are summoned to receive and spread his love, to make his fold inclusive and never to exclude others."

He called on Hungary to "open the doors" to immigrants and refugees, noting "how sad and painful it is to see closed doors." Francis has long advocated for immigration policies bordering (no pun intended) on open borders.

The pontiff's comments were likely not appreciated by Orbán.

Under the leadership of his Fidesz party, Hungary has developed and enforced strict border-control policies, often garnering criticism from more left-leaning European heads of state.

A report released last month, however, revealed that Hungary's immigration policies were actually responsible for a more than 20 percent drop in illegal immigration into Europe as a whole.

Despite leftist criticisms, other European nations are following Hungary's lead, like Italy, under the leadership of conservative Catholic Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and even France, helmed by leftist darling Emmanuel Macron, once a vocal critic of Orbán's border policies.

Orbán has been one of the driving forces behind protecting his homeland's borders. In 2021, he explained that his border-control policies are a defense of Hungarian national identity, which he clearly holds dear:

If we invite others from outside Europe that will change the cultural identity of Europe…. There are some countries that accept it but Hungary is not among those countries. We would not like to change the cultural identity of our country so we don't accept migration as a solution to demographic politics or demographic challenges.

He loudly encourages all Hungarians to hold their national heritage dear, too.

For example, Orbán earlier this year said that his country's national anthem highlights Hungarians' "greatest struggles — sometimes peaceful, sometimes warlike — [which] have always been fought so that we can remain who we are, so that we can live as we want to live."

If the prime minister's policies are any indication, he also considers the family core to who Hungarians are and how they want to live.

Orbán and Fidesz have worked hard to encourage Hungarians to grow their families, including by exempting mothers under 30 from paying income tax and introducing various government subsidies and tax breaks to support larger families. Continue reading

In so doing, Francis sent a message to Catholic leaders on the importance of caring for refugees. His pontificate has been marked by his concern for migrants.

Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini lived at a time of mass migrations in Europe. The migrations reflected the economic, industrial and scientific changes that led millions to seek a new life in the Americas. His advocacy for immigrants founded the Catholic Church's pastoral approach to migration today.

Scalabrini was capable of not just fully and capably managing his diocese, but was able to look beyond, said Rev. Graziano Battistella, who shepherded Scalabrini's cause for sainthood.

"With this canonisation, I think the Holy Father wants to offer the church a model to imitate," Battistella said. "A model for bishops, a model for the church."

Francis waived the necessity for a second miracle attributed to the father of migrants, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

Born in Como, Italy, in 1839, Scalabrini he founded the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo (called Scalabrinian Fathers) in 1887. He later established the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles.

Migration was viewed negatively at the time.

Scalabrini, however, saw the upheaval as a chance to ease socio-economic tensions at home while promoting cultural encounter and jump-starting progress. Without laws and protections in place, migration could strip people of their roots and make them prey to human traffickers, he warned.

Unusually for the time, Scalabrini believed migration is not only "a sacred human right" but a basic fact of human existence.

The answers Scalabrini offered to migration anticipated modern times, said Sister Neusa de Fatima Mariano, Superior of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles.

The new saint was especially sensitive to the role women religious play in helping migrants. The sisters now run over 100 missions in the world catering especially to women and children. In addition, the Scalabrinian Secular Missionary Women, founded in Switzerland in 1961, and other lay groups live out Scalabrini's teachings in local communities.

The Scalabrinian Fathers operate parishes, hospitals and welcoming centers in 33 countries. The Rev. Leonir Chiarello, superior general of the order, said that the missionaries champion the rights of migrants at borders and other critical places around the world.

"Pope Francis is sending a clear and solemn message to the church and humanity as a whole: The migrants, who first moved him and urged him to action, remain a central theme for the church and society," said Chiarello.

Scalabrini's vision continues today in the dozens of welcoming centers for migrants in South America and Italy.

Source

• Religion News Service

Everyone is deserving of mercy, whether they're foreigners or simply people in need of compassion, he said at the Grotto of St Paul in Rabat.

He went on to speak of Malta's tradition of hospitality that goes back to the time of St Paul, whose ship was wrecked on its coast.

People welcomed Paul and his companions and "treated them with rare humanity, recognising that they were in need of shelter, security and assistance," Francis reminded the crowd.

"No one knew their names, their place of birth or their social status. They knew only one thing - that these were people in need of help."

Francis went on to ask God to help humanity "to recognise from afar those in need, struggling amidst the waves of the sea, dashed against the reefs of unknown shores.

"Let us light fires of fraternity around which people can warm themselves, rise again and rediscover hope. Let us strengthen the fabric of social friendship and the culture of encounter, starting from places such as this."

After leaving the Grotto, Francis paid a visit to migrants at Hal Far's Peace Lab.

Continuing to speak of migrants and of mercy, he urged the faithful to "respond to the challenge of migrants and refugees with kindness and humanity".

Showing his empathy and understanding of migrants' experience, Francis noted the experience of being uprooted and being forced to become a refugee left its mark on those affected.

"Not just the pain and emotion of that moment, but a deep wound affecting your journey of growth as a young man or woman."

It takes time to heal that wound; it takes time and most of all it takes experiences of human kindness.

There's also much to be said for sharing the journey with others. This way, people can experience the benefits of living alongside others, sharing things with them and bearing their burdens together.

There are numerous difficulties faced by refugees and the communities they seek to integrate themselves into, he said.

"I think of these reception centres, and how important it is for them to be places marked by human kindness! We know how difficult that can be, since there are always things that create tensions and difficulties.

"Yet, on every continent, there are individuals and communities who take up the challenge, realising that migrations are a sign of the times, where civility itself is in play." ​

Being patient while building a new life is a reality which can stretch people's coping mechanisms as well, he conceded. But building a new life "takes time, immense patience and above all a love made up of closeness, tenderness and compassion, like God's love for us".

Francis finished telling everyone he dreamed they "who are migrants, after having received a welcome rich in human kindness and fraternity, will become in turn witnesses and agents of welcome and fraternity".​

Source

• Malta Today
• Cruc Now
• Image: ABC News

Francis, who has made defence of migrants and refugees a cornerstone of his pontificate, spoke at the end of his second day in Cyprus, where he met migrants, some of whom will be among 50 to be re-located to Italy on his initiative over the coming months.

Departing from a prepared speech, he said many people were still asking how Nazi concentration camps or Stalinist gulags in the post-war period could have been allowed to exist.

"Brothers and sisters, this is happening today," he said, citing conditions for refugees in camps in Libya and elsewhere to where they are forcibly returned when expelled from Europe.

"They have ended up in concentration camps where women are sold, men are tortured and (people) enslaved," he said.

After listening to some of the migrants' stories, the pope said: "The worst thing is that we are getting used to it.... This indifference is a grave disease for which there is no antibiotic."

The 84-year-old pontiff said he regretted having to speak about such unpleasant things but added: "It is my responsibility to open eyes."

Read More

But instead, it clearly appears that more often than not, Catholics - much like the general public - make important decisions on who to vote for, and where to come down on crucial issues, based primarily on the political party they affiliate with and from their cultural, economic and political leanings as being either conservative or liberal.

Putting faith on the back burner is not Christocentric, and is not Catholic.

And so when it comes to the life and death issues facing billions of suffering brothers and sisters - born and unborn, in one's nation, as well as in all other countries - Catholics for the most part, don't look, sound or act much different than the larger secular population. And that's not good.

But in the Gospel, Jesus puts forth to his followers this challenging directive: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house."

In a world that is so often darkened by what Pope Francis calls the "culture of indifference," we, the modern-day followers of Jesus, like his ancient followers, are called to radiate the Master's light of love upon the various sufferings of countless brothers and sisters.

But we are taking this mandate too lightly - in a fractured and partial way.

In general, I have long found that very often Catholics with conservative leanings, more or less oppose abortion, infanticide, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, promiscuous public school sex education and government attacks on religious liberty and traditional marriage.

And in general, I have long found that very often Catholics with liberal leanings, more or less support nonviolent peace initiatives, demilitarization, drastically cutting military budgets and redirecting those funds to end global hunger and poverty, protecting the environment while working to end human-induced climate change, abolishing capital punishment, welcoming migrants and refugees, opposing racism, and fighting to stop human trafficking.

Each of these efforts is morally commendable - to a point.

But the problem is that when it comes to conservative Catholic social action initiatives and liberal Catholic social action initiatives, it most often boils down to "never the twain shall meet."

And this is disastrous - disastrous for our Catholic faith and for all who will continue to suffer because we prefer biased, ideological, narrow-minded tunnel vision to open-minded, heartfelt Catholic dialogue that places the Gospel and Catholic social teaching as our foundation.

Catholic conservatives and Catholic liberals desperately need to pray and take concrete steps in forging a unity designed to work together to develop holistic nonviolent strategies aimed at protecting the life and dignity of every single human being from conception to natural death - with a preferential option for the poorest and most vulnerable, including our common earth-home.

Instead of ranking the life issues, we need to link them, always bearing in mind that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Thus, all the life-links need to be strong!

Imagine what a moral, political, economic, cultural and religious beacon of light the Catholic Church would be if conservative Catholics and liberal Catholics would come together, in a determined way to learn from each other, to pray together and to work together with Christocentric passion building Pope Francis' "culture of encounter" where all life is respected, protected and nurtured!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

But even with the best prognosis, age is catching up to Francis.

Barring a miracle, he will only be expected to continue as pope for five or six years. We may look back at his hospitalisation as the moment that marked the beginning of the end of his papacy.

If that's the case, we will also be able to count incredible achievements.

As a pastor, Francis has caught the imagination of the world with his compassion and openness to all people. He has put love, especially love for the poor, centre stage in his peaching of the gospel.

As a world leader, he has put his papacy squarely on the side of migrants and refugees. And he has been a prophetic voice against global warming and the excesses of capitalism.

And within the church, he has encouraged dialogue and a more consultative style of governance: Put bluntly, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith no longer acts like the Inquisition it once was.

In short, Francis has rebranded the papacy for the 21st century with a pastoral, prophetic and inclusive voice.

Where he has been less successful is in winning over the clerical establishment to his vision for the church. In his eight years as pope, Francis has hardly dented the clerical establishment that he inherited.

Many bishops and priests in the Roman Curia and around the world think his election was a mistake and they are hoping for a return to what they regard as normalcy in the next papacy.

They feel he has not emphasized dogma and rules enough, so they are not cooperating.

Yet Francis has treated these opponents with the gentleness of a pastor who hopes for their conversion.

Any other CEO would simply replace those who are not on board with his agenda, but Francis refuses to fire people.

As a result, he has waited until curial officials and bishops reached retirement age. For such a strategy to have an effect requires a very long papacy, such as the 27-year reign of John Paul II, followed by eight years of Benedict.

During this 35-year period, John Paul and Benedict remade the episcopacy in their image.

The litmus test was loyalty and orthodoxy as they defined it.

Anyone who questioned the papacy's position on birth control, married priests or women priests was disqualified.

These bishops then revamped the seminaries that have produced the clergy we have today.

One of the best examples is the United States, where neither the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops nor the seminaries are bastions of Francis supporters.

Bishops who embody Francis' values make up only 20 to 40 of the 223 active U.S. bishops.

And among the clergy, Francis receives his greatest support from older priests, who are dying off, rather than younger ones who are the future of the church.

Instead of taking to heart the axiom that "personnel is policy," he left in place a Benedict appointee, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, the office that vets candidates for the episcopacy.

The nuncios, who suggest episcopal candidates, were also trained and advanced under John Paul and Benedict, and for the first three years of Francis' papacy, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, an archenemy, served in that role in the United States.

As a result, even the American bishops appointed under Francis are a mixed bag.

Finding young candidates for the priesthood, meanwhile, who support Francis and want to be celibate is like looking for Catholic unicorns, and if you were to find some, they aren't likely to be welcomed by conservative seminaries.

As a result, the laity who are encouraged to come to church because they like Francis are unlikely to find him in their parishes or dioceses.

Reforming the Catholic Church takes decades, not years.

If his papacy is reckoned a failure, it will be because Francis failed to replace or outlast the clerical establishment put in place by John Paul and Benedict.

His papacy will only succeed if he is followed by popes who are in sync with his approach to Catholicism, and this is not guaranteed.

He has appointed sympathetic men to the College of Cardinals, but conclaves are unpredictable as his own election showed.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

The global "Share the Journey" campaign aims to build "bridges of hope between islands separated by fear," says Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, president of Caritas Internationalis.

Although the campaign has formally ended, its message continues. Communities are encouraged to change attitudes toward immigration by getting them to know their migrant neighbours.

"We gave ourselves a few challenges: not just seeing the migrants but looking at them with compassion; not just hearing their voice but listening to their stories and concerns; not just passing by the other side but stopping, as the good Samaritan, and living a moment of communion with them," Tagle says.

Anyone can get involved.

They can go on a sponsored or symbolic solidarity walk with refugees, invite migrants to shared meals, or light a virtual candle.

Some people may want to share messages or stories, which will be gathered into a compilation for Pope Francis.

Asked about ways to measure the success of the four-year "Share the Journey" campaign, both Aloysius John, secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis and Tagle spoke of individual encounters where people were "converted" to recognizing the migrant in their midst as a brother or sister.

"People have been touched in different ways, touched by the suffering," says John.

The ongoing campaign hopes to develop "a new consciousness, a new way of looking at people on the move and developing this culture where, instead of fear of the 'other,' we see a human person and we give them the love, the attention, that we know every human being deserves," Tagle says.

"We cannot set a time frame; we cannot say, 'At the end of 2021 everyone, including Caritas workers, should have been converted already.' We hope that happens, but knowing human freedom and human frailty," some people will need more time."

With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing and with many nations claiming a need to protect their own citizens first, we face "the risk of intensifying selfishness and the fear of strangers," Tagle says.

The call is for everyone to show solidarity and " continue to share the journey with migrants, especially at this most difficult moment."

"The mission continues," Tagle says.

"Where there is indifference and intolerance toward migrants, Caritas will stand by them to express the love and concern of the Mother Church," John says.

His comment is echoed by Msgr Bruno-Marie Duffé, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

He notes the campaign's key elements reflect Catholic teaching on migrants, beginning with the fact that they are human beings with dignity and rights to be protected.

Everyone has a journey, an intimate pain that haunts them and each of them has a hope: to be considered as a person, to be called by name, to be welcomed and recognized, he says.

Source

• Detroit Catholic
• Image: Caritas Internationalis

He says he was cheered by a recent reading at Mass where a group is bewailing the fact that their "good deeds" go unnoticed when they fast.

"Part of the problem, as Isaiah is at pains to point out, are the double standards of the obsequious with their practices of denial', says Fr Tim Duckworth, leader of the Society of Mary in New Zealand.

"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

"Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?"

"Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily." (Is 58:1-9)

Duckworth points out to Marist priests and brothers that what might be labeled traditional "Lenten practices" like fasting, hanging your head, and lying down on sackcloth and ashes all get a sideswipe when compared to what is really necessary.

He is encouraging Marist priests and brothers to turn again to the needs of the disadvantaged, dispossessed, migrants, homeless and young people and to ask: "How is it that our ministry, prayer, our Lenten observance can make a difference?"

Duckworth says that he often hears young people criticise religion and religious people.

They say religion and religious people are "overly concerned with ourselves as related to God and not that much concerned with the gospel message that Jesus was at pains to point out."

As a tangible expression of the Gospel and a response to Isaiah 58:1-9, the New Zealand leader of the Society of Mary, proposes that Marist priests and brothers use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to focus the attention of their community life and mission.

As Duckworth points out the Sustainable Development Goals receive the endorsement of Pope Francis who labels them "a great step forward".

Economic and political objectives, Pope Francis stressed, "must be sustained by ethical objectives, which presuppose a change of attitude: what the Bible would call a change of heart."

What is needed, Francis writes, is a commitment to "promoting and implementing the development goals that are supported by our deepest religious and ethical values."

Noting the importance of the religious dimension, Francis says that "those of us who are religious need to open up the treasures of our best traditions in order to engage in a true and respectful dialogue on how to build the future of our planet."

In presenting this vision to New Zealand Marists, Duckworth is realistic and acknowledges, for example, no one Marist community is going to achieve world peace alone.

However, he observes, joining with others across the globe makes it more possible.

"We do well to focus our attention on these huge issues so that we do not lose sight of all that is required to make the world a better, more just, more compassionate, more empathetic, more merciful, more loving and peaceful place", he writes.

Acknowledging the Sustainable Development Goals are the product of the United Nations, Duckworth reinforces Pope Francis' message that they are not divorced from the Christian message.

"The Christian Gospel brings additional insights and impulses into each of these Sustainable Development Goals. For us, they are all underpinned by our Christian understanding that as Children of God we are required to care for each other, for our planet and for the conditions and lives of others in our world."

Duckworth notes the United Nations set these brave goals as a target for 2030 and is urging Marists to be bold.

"We could easily be overwhelmed by them and say — well that simply isn't possible, rather than how can I add what I have into this effort."

Sustainable Development Goals

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Sources

• Tim Duckworth SM is the New Zealand provincial leader of the Society of Mary
• United Nations
• Vatican News

The document focuses on fraternity and social friendship as the ways to build a better, more just and peaceful world - with the contribution of all: people and institutions.

The official summary follows, with a link to download the full document at the end.

What are the great ideals but also the tangible ways to advance for those who wish to build a more just and fraternal world in their ordinary relationships, in social life, politics and institutions?

This is mainly the question that Fratelli tutti is intended to answer: the Pope describes it as a "Social Encyclical" which borrows the title of the "Admonitions" of Saint Francis of Assisi, who used these words to "address his brothers and sisters and proposed to them a way of life marked by the flavour of the Gospel" (1).

The Poverello "did not wage a war of words aimed at imposing doctrines; he simply spread the love of God", the Pope writes, and "he became a father to all and inspired the vision of a fraternal society" (2-4).

The Encyclical aims to promote a universal aspiration toward fraternity and social friendship. Beginning with our common membership in the human family, from the acknowledgement that we are brothers and sisters because we are the children of one Creator, all in the same boat, and hence we need to be aware that in a globalized and interconnected world, only together can we be saved.

Human Fraternity

Fraternity is to be encouraged not only in words, but in deeds.

Deeds made tangible in a "better kind of politics", which is not subordinated to financial interests, but to serving the common good, able to place the dignity of every human being at the centre and assure work to everyone, so that each one can develop his or her own abilities.

A politics which, removed from populism, is able to find solutions to what attacks fundamental human rights and which aims to definitively eliminate hunger and trafficking.

At the same time, Pope Francis underscores that a more just world is achieved by promoting peace, which is not merely the absence of war; it demands "craftsmanship", a job that involves everyone.

Linked to truth, peace and reconciliation must be "proactive"; they must work toward justice through dialogue, in the name of mutual development.

This begets the Pontiff's condemnation of war, the "negation of all rights" and is no longer conceivable even in a hypothetically "justified" form, because nuclear, chemical and biological weapons already have enormous repercussions on innocent civilians.

There is also a strong rejection of the death penalty, defined as "inadmissible", and a central reflection on forgiveness, connected to the concepts of remembrance and justice: to forgive does not mean to forget, the Pontiff writes, nor to give up defending one's rights to safeguard one's dignity, which is a gift from God.

In the background of the Encyclical is the Covid-19 pandemic which, Francis reveals, "unexpectedly erupted" as he "was writing this letter". But the global health emergency has helped demonstrate that "no one can face life in isolation" and that the time has truly come to "dream, then, as a single human family" in which we are "brothers and sisters all" (7-8).

Global problems, global actions

Opening with a brief introduction and divided into eight chapters, the Encyclical gathers - as the Pope himself explains - many of his statements on fraternity and social friendship, arranged, however, "in a broader context of reflection" and complemented by "a number of letters, documents" sent to Francis by "many individuals and groups throughout the world" (5).

In the first chapter, "Dark clouds over a closed world", the document reflects on the many distortions of the contemporary era: the manipulation and deformation of concepts such as democracy, freedom, justice; the loss of the meaning of the social community and history; selfishness and indifference toward the common good; the prevalence of a market logic based on profit and the culture of waste; unemployment, racism, poverty; the disparity of rights and its aberrations such as slavery, trafficking, women subjugated and then forced to abort, organ trafficking (10-24).

It deals with global problems that call for global actions, emphasizes the Pope, also sounding the alarm against a "culture of walls" that favours the proliferation of organized crime, fuelled by fear and loneliness (27-28).

Moreover, today we observe a deterioration of ethics (29), contributed to, in a certain way, by the mass media which shatter respect for others and eliminate all discretion, creating isolated and self-referential virtual circles, in which freedom is an illusion and dialogue is not constructive (42-50).

Love builds bridges: the Good Samaritan

To many shadows, however, the Encyclical responds with a luminous example, a herald of hope: the Good Samaritan.

The second chapter, "A stranger on the road", is dedicated to this figure.

In it, the Pope emphasizes that, in an unhealthy society that turns its back on suffering and that is "illiterate" in caring for the frail and vulnerable (64-65), we are all called - just like the Good Samaritan - to become neighbours to others (81), overcoming prejudices, personal interests, historic and cultural barriers.

We all, in fact, are co-responsible in creating a society that is able to include, integrate and lift up those who have fallen or are suffering (77).

Love builds bridges and "we were made for love" (88), the Pope adds, particularly exhorting Christians to recognize Christ in the face of every excluded person (85).

The principle of the capacity to love according to "a universal dimension" (83) is also resumed in the third chapter, "Envisaging and engendering an open world".

In this chapter Francis exhorts us to go "'outside' the self" in order to find "a fuller existence in another" (88), opening ourselves up to the other according to the dynamism of charity which makes us tend toward "universal fulfilment" (95).

In the background - the Encyclical recalls - the spiritual stature of a person's life is measured by love, which always "takes first place" and leads us to seek better for the life of the other, far from all selfishness (92-93).

Rights have no borders

A fraternal society, therefore, will be one that promotes educating in dialogue in order to defeat the "virus" of "radical individualism" (105) and to allow everyone to give the best of themselves.

Beginning with protection of the family and respect for its "primary and vital mission of education" (114).

There are two 'tools' in particular to achieve this type of society: benevolence, or truly wanting good for the other (112), and solidarity which cares for fragility and is expressed in service to people and not to ideologies, fighting against poverty and inequality (115).

The right to live with dignity cannot be denied to anyone, the Pope again affirms, and since rights have no borders, no one can remain excluded, regardless of where they are born (121).

In this perspective the Pontiff also calls us to consider "an ethics of international relations" (126), because every country also belongs to foreigners and the goods of the territory cannot be denied to those who are in need and come from another place.

Thus, the natural right to private property will be secondary to the principal of the universal destination of created goods (120).

The Encyclical also places specific emphasis on the issue of foreign debt: subject to the principle that it must be paid, it is hoped nonetheless that this does not compromise the growth and subsistence of the poorest countries (126).

Migrants: global governance for long-term planning

Meanwhile, part of the second and the entire fourth chapter are dedicated to the theme of migration, the latter, entitled "A heart open to the whole world".

With their lives "at stake" (37), fleeing from war, persecution, natural catastrophes, unscrupulous trafficking, ripped from their communities of origin, migrants are to be welcomed, protected, supported and integrated.

Unnecessary migration needs to be avoided, the Pontiff affirms, by creating concrete opportunities to live with dignity in the countries of origin. But at the same time, we need to respect the right to seek a better life elsewhere.

In receiving countries, the right balance will be between the protection of citizens' rights and the guarantee of welcome and assistance for migrants (38-40).

Specifically, the Pope points to several "indispensable steps, especially in response to those who are fleeing grave humanitarian crises": to increase and simplify the granting of visas; to open humanitarian corridors; to assure lodging, security and essential services; to offer opportunities for employment and training; to favour family reunification; to protect minors; to guarantee religious freedom and promote social inclusion.

The Pope also calls for establishing in society the concept of "full citizenship", and to reject the discriminatory use of the term "minorities" (129-131).

What is needed above all - the document reads - is global governance, an international collaboration for migration which implements long-term planning, going beyond single emergencies (132), on behalf of the supportive development of all peoples based on the principle of gratuitousness.

In this way, countries will be able to think as "human family" (139-141).

Others who are different from us are a gift and an enrichment for all, Francis writes, because differences represent an opportunity for growth (133-135).

A healthy culture is a welcoming culture that is able to open up to others, without renouncing itself, offering them something authentic. As in a polyhedron - an image dear to the Pontiff - the whole is more than its single parts, but the value of each one of them is respected (145-146).

Politics: valuable form of charity

The theme of the fifth chapter is "A better kind of politics", which represents one of the most valuable forms of charity because it is placed at the service of the common good (180) and recognizes the importance of people, understood as an open category, available for discussion and dialogue (160).

In a certain sense, this is the populism indicated by Francis, which counters that "populism" which ignores the legitimacy of the notion of "people", by attracting consensuses in order to exploit them for its own service and fomenting selfishness in order to increase its own popularity (159).

But a better politics is also one that protects work, an "essential dimension of social life", and seeks to ensure everyone the opportunity to develop their own abilities (162).

The best help to a poor person, the Pontiff explains, is not just money, which is a provisional remedy, but rather allowing him or her to have a dignified life through work.

The true anti-poverty strategy does not simply aim to contain or render indigents inoffensive, but to promote them in the perspective of solidarity and subsidiarity (187).

The task of politics, moreover, is to find a solution to all that attacks fundamental human rights, such as social exclusion; the marketing of organs, tissues, weapons and drugs; sexual exploitation; slave labour; terrorism and organized crime.

The Pope makes an emphatic appeal to definitively eliminate human trafficking, a "source of shame for humanity", and hunger, which is "criminal" because food is "an inalienable right" (188-189).

The marketplace, by itself, cannot resolve every problem. It requires a reform of the UN

The politics we need, Francis also underscores, is one that says 'no' to corruption, to inefficiency, to the malign use of power, to the lack of respect for laws (177).

It is a politics centred on human dignity and not subjected to finance because "the marketplace, by itself, cannot resolve every problem": the "havoc" wreaked by financial speculation has demonstrated this (168).

Hence, popular movements have taken on particular relevance: as true "social poets" with that "torrent of moral energy", they must be engaged in social, political and economic participation, subject, however, to greater coordination.

In this way - the Pope states - it will be possible to go beyond a Policy "with" and "of" the poor (169).

Another hope present in the Encyclical regards the reform of the UN: in the face of the predominance of the economic dimension which nullifies the power of the individual state, in fact, the task of the United Nations will be to give substance to the concept of a "family of nations" working for the common good, the eradication of indigence and the protection of human rights.

Tireless recourse "to negotiation, mediation and arbitration" - the Papal Document states - the UN must promote the force of law rather than the law of force, by favouring multilateral accords that better protect even the weakest states (173-175).

The miracle of kindness

From the sixth chapter, "Dialogue and friendship in society", further emerges the concept of life as the "art of encounter" with everyone, even with the world's peripheries and with original peoples, because "each of us can learn something from others.

No one is useless and no one is expendable" (215).

True dialogue, indeed, is what allows one to respect the point of view of others, their legitimate interests and, above all, the truth of human dignity.

Relativism is not a solution - we read in the Encyclical - because without universal principals and moral norms that prohibit intrinsic evil, laws become merely arbitrary impositions (206).

From this perspective, a particular role falls to the media which, without exploiting human weaknesses or drawing out the worst in us, must be directed toward generous encounter and to closeness with the least, promoting proximity and the sense of human family (205).

Then, of particular note, is the Pope's reference to the miracle of "kindness", an attitude to be recovered because it is a star "shining in the midst of darkness" and "frees us from the cruelty … the anxiety … the frantic flurry of activity" that prevail in the contemporary era.

A kind person, writes Francis, creates a healthy coexistence and opens paths in places where exasperation burns bridges (222-224).

The art of peace and the importance of forgiveness

The value and promotion of peace is reflected on in the seventh chapter, "Paths of renewed encounter", in which the Pope underlines that peace is connected to truth, justice and mercy.

Far from the desire for vengeance, it is "proactive" and aims at forming a society based on service to others and on the pursuit of reconciliation and mutual development (227-229).

In a society, everyone must feel "at home", the Pope writes.

Thus, peace is an "art" that involves and regards everyone and in which each one must do his or her part. Peace-building is "an open-ended endeavour, a never-ending task", the Pope continues, and thus it is important to place the human person, his or her dignity and the common good at the centre of all activity (230-232).

Forgiveness is linked to peace: we must love everyone, without exception - the Encyclical reads - but loving an oppressor means helping him to change and not allowing him to continue oppressing his neighbour.

On the contrary: one who suffers an injustice must vigorously defend his rights in order to safeguard his dignity, a gift of God (241-242).

Forgiveness does not mean impunity, but rather, justice and remembrance, because to forgive does not mean to forget, but to renounce the destructive power of evil and the desire for revenge.

Never forget "horrors" like the Shoah, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, persecutions and ethnic massacres - exhorts the Pope.

They must be remembered always, anew, so as not be become anaesthetized and to keep the flame of collective conscience alive. It is just as important to remember the good, and those who have chosen forgiveness and fraternity (246-252).

Never again war, a failure of humanity

Part of the seventh chapter, then, focuses on war: it is not "a ghost from the past" - Francis emphasizes - "but a constant threat", and it represents "the negation of all rights", "a failure of politics and of humanity", and "a stinging defeat before the forces of evil" which lies in their "abyss".

Moreover, due to nuclear chemical and biological weapons that strike many innocent civilians, today we can no longer think, as in the past, of the possibility of a "just war", but we must vehemently reaffirm: "Never again war!"

And considering that we are experiencing a "world war fought piecemeal", because all conflicts are interconnected, the total elimination of nuclear arms is "a moral and humanitarian imperative".

With the money invested in weapons, the Pope suggests instead the establishment of a global fund for the elimination of hunger (255-262).

The death penalty inadmissible, to be abolished

Francis expresses just as clear a position with regard to the death penalty: it is inadmissible and must be abolished worldwide, because "not even a murderer loses his personal dignity" - the Pope writes - "and God himself pledges to guarantee this".

From here, two exhortations: do not view punishment as vindictive, but rather as part of a process of healing and of social reintegration, and to improve prison conditions, with respect for the human dignity of the inmates, also considering that "a life sentence is a secret death penalty" (263-269).

There is emphasis on the necessity to respect "the sacredness of life" (283) where today "some parts of our human family, it appears, can be readily sacrificed", such as the unborn, the poor, the disabled and the elderly (18).

Guarantee religious freedom

In the eighth and final chapter, the Pontiff focuses on "Religions at the service of fraternity in our world" and again emphasizes that violence has no basis in religious convictions, but rather in their deformities.

Thus, "deplorable" acts, such as acts of terrorism, are not due to religion but to erroneous interpretations of religious texts, as well as "policies linked to hunger, poverty, injustice, oppression".

Terrorism must not be supported with either money or weapons, much less with media coverage, because it is an international crime against security and world peace, and as such must be condemned (282-283).

At the same time the Pope underscores that a journey of peace among religions is possible and that it is, therefore, necessary to guarantee religious freedom, a fundamental human right for all believers (279).

The Encyclical reflects, in particular, on the role of the Church: she does not "restrict her mission to the private sphere", it states.

She does not remain at the margins of society and, while not engaging in politics, however, she does not renounce the political dimension of life itself.

Attention to the common good and concern for integral human development, in fact, concern humanity, and all that is human concerns the Church, according to evangelical principals (276-278).

Lastly, reminding religious leaders of their role as "authentic mediators" who expend themselves in order to build peace, Francis quotes the "Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together", which he signed on 4 February 2019 in Abu Dhabi, along with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyib: from that milestone of interreligious dialogue, the Pontiff returns to the appeal that, in the name of human fraternity, dialogue be adopted as the way, common cooperation as conduct, and mutual knowledge as method and standard (285).

Blessed Charles de Foucauld, "the universal brother"

The Encyclical concludes by remembering Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi and above all Blessed Charles de Foucauld, a model for everyone of what it means to identify with the least in order to become "the universal brother" (286-287).

The last lines of the Document are given to two prayers: one "to the Creator" and the other an "Ecumenical Christian Prayer", so that the heart of mankind may harbour "a spirit of fraternity".

Fratelli Tutti - Encyclical of the Holy Father, Francis, on the fraternity and social friendship

The encyclical calls for a new kind of politics and emphasises social friendship as a way to build a more just and peaceful world.

It encourages the contribution of all people and institutions and seeks to build a global movement of fraternity.

In many cases the encyclical is a condensation of the issues Francis has tacked during his pontificate.

The document covers a range of topics, for example, from digital culture, migrants, economics, war and nuclear weapons, the death penalty, religious freedom, peace, forgiveness, the markeplace, Christian charity, love, trafficking, racism, unemployment, excessive profits, culture walls and the role of christians in politics.

Among many of the topics Francis traverses, he observes that currently humanity seems to be the midst of a worrying regression and is intensely polarized.

He says people are talking and debating without listening, and global society seems to have devolved into a "permanent state of disagreement and confrontation."

In some countries, leaders are using a "strategy of ridicule" and relentless criticism, spreading despair as a way to "dominate and gain control," Francis observes.

Although beginning to write the encyclical before the outbreak of COVID-19, Francis argues the world's response to the crisis shows the depth of humanity's mistrust and fractures.

In this light, Francis says that Christians have a key role in political life and despite all the difficulties should not bow out of political engagement.

Christians, he said, must act at a local level to build relationships of trust and assistance and support politicians and political platforms that promote the common good.

"Whereas individuals can help others in need when they join together in initiating social processes of fraternity and justice for all, they enter the ‘field of charity at its most vast, namely political charity,'" he said.

Getting practical, Pope Francis explained that "if someone helps an elderly person cross a river, that is a fine act of charity. The politician, on the other hand, builds a bridge, and that too is an act of charity" but on a larger scale.

Focussing on one of society's most visible items of mistrust, Francis dwells on the fractious issue of immigration, saying that unnecessary migration needs to be avoided by creating concrete opportunities to live with dignity in the countries of origin. But at the same time, humanity needs to respect the right to seek a better life elsewhere.

Focussing on receiving countries, Francis says there needs to be a right balance between the protection of citizens' rights and the guarantee of welcome and assistance for migrants.

Saving harsh words for politicians who have "fomented and exploited" fear over immigration, Francis observes a healthy culture is a welcoming culture, one that does not have to renounce itself.

The pope observes that despite all our hyper-connectivity, we are witnesses to a global fragmentation making it difficult to resolve problems that affect us all.

The encyclical also offers some developments to Catholic social teaching, including on war where he writes that due to nuclear chemical and biological weapons that strike many innocent civilians, today we can no longer think, as in the past, of the possibility of a "just war", but we must vehemently reaffirm: "Never again war!"

The pope also expands another area of Catholic social teaching; the death penalty.

Francis says that not even a murderer loses their personal dignity and the death penalty must be abolished worldwide.

Sources

• Washington Post
• Catholic News Service
• Image: Our Father's House Soup Kitchen

New Zealand does not have a great track record in its relationship with Samoa:

• The influenza epidemic killed over 22% of Samoa's population in 1918, a disease that was introduced to Samoa by sick passengers on board a ship from New Zealand. Survivors blamed the New Zealand Administrator, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Logan, for failing to quarantine the ship and for rejecting an offer of medical assistance from American Samoa.
• Dec 28, 2018, New Zealand military police fired on Mau independence demonstrators in Apia, killing 11 Samoans, including the independence leader Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III.
• In the 197os with the economy in recession and unemployment rising, the spotlight was turned on Pasifika ‘overstayers' - immigrants whose temporary visas had expired. Accused of overloading the welfare system, some were detained and deported. Dawn raids on the homes of alleged overstayers by police began in 1974 and intensified in October 1976.

In 2002 the then prime minister of New Zealand apologised to the Samoan people for "events in our past which have been little known in New Zealand, although they are well known in Samoa."

But it seems "... there's one thing about New Zealand you can't get away from. And that's the racism that never totally went away, that hits you when you're not expecting it," says Christine Ammunson, writing for the Spinoff,

She says she thought that "being brown is cool now".

"So when I saw a cartoon that turned the death of our Samoan babies into a joke I was for once lost for words".

"I know that Tremain would never have made a cartoon joking about the precious souls lost in the Pike River tragedy".

"And even if he did, the Otago Daily Times (ODT) would never have published it.

And that's because Tremain and the management at the ODT saw that tragedy through human eyes, and with empathy."

Ammunson says she is glad the ODTs has apologised for the cartoon.

But I will always wonder: if so many of us hadn't roared in rage at the ODT's heartlessness at this, one of Samoa's darkest times - would they have apologised?

She is dismayed at Tremain's attempt to brush it off.

Source

• nzhistory.govt.nz
• nzhistory.govt.nz
• nzhistory.govt.nz
• thespinoff.co.nz
• Image: bbc.com

Last Sunday marked the launch of a key milestone in the campaign - that of the Global Week of Action (GWA19). The week, this year, is themed around all things creative, recognising art as the great connector, in its universal ability to impact on people's minds and hearts.

Caritas Director, Julianne Hickey says, "Throughout history, humans have been on the move. And they've always been creative. We are drawing on art this year to inspire and challenge us to consider our encounters with others in our communities. We are reminded we are all
connected as one human family."

During GWA19, which runs from 29 September to 6 October 2019, Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is enlarging the iconic 2019 Share the Journey collage and inviting schools, individuals and communities to add their own photos and stories.

The collage will be in the Caritas Office throughout the week, welcoming individuals to bring photos or images from their own families and communities to create a truly cosmopolitan collage including faces and stories from our region. To find out how you can be involved, contact Joanna Viernes at joannaV@caritas.org.nz

The thousands of faces in Caritas' original STJ collage are those of migrants, refugees, Caritas staff and supporters, of ordinary people from all over the world. Together as a real-life giant collage, the faces form the image of a woman named Nasrin. She works with Caritas
Bangladesh, caring for Rohingya children in the refugee camps they call home.

To learn more about GWA, click here

Supplied: Amanda Gregan at amandag@caritas.org.nz or 027 9399 575

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' agency for justice, peace and development, and incorporates Catholic Volunteers Overseas. We are working for a world free of poverty and injustice through community development, advocacy, education, and emergency relief.

The decrease in resident numbers in the last year is largely because of delays in processing.

"It's not clear whether that is part of the way they're bringing the numbers down because they have a target to reach in terms of a lower number of residents." Read more

"Migrants are first of all human persons, and they are the symbol of all those rejected by today's globalised society," he tweeted on Monday.

However, Italian Twitter users were unimpressed with his views.

Some responded asking Francis to think instead of earthquake victims or of Vincent Lambert, the quadriplegic Frenchman whose parents recently accepted the ending of his life support.

Others said he should spend more time talking about Jesus and other religious topics. Others were even more blunt.

"When you have a bit of time between a lecture on migrants and a sermon on migrants, tell us something about the children and the destroyed families of Bibbiano," one tweet reads.

Bibbiano is the Italian port where the German captain of a private rescue boat carrying illegal immigrants threatened to ram an Italian police vessel trying to stop it from landing last week.

Francis's tweet followed a homily published on Monday in which he focused on migrants, saying:

"These least ones are abandoned and cheated into dying in the desert; these least ones are tortured, abused and violated in detention camps; these least ones face the waves of an unforgiving sea; these least ones are left in reception camps too long for them to be called temporary."

Also on Monday, the front page of Italy's daily la Repubblica newspaper ran the headline: "Catholics at a crossroads: the Pope or Salvini."

The paper was referring to Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has been at the centre of recent controversy concerning migrants rescued on the Mediterranean when he refused to let charity rescue vessels dock in Italian ports.

Last month his far-right League party introduced laws which would lead to heavy fines for any migrant NGOs which enter Italian waters.

Salvini has vowed that Italy will no longer host the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa every year.

He has also has accused other EU states, especially France and Germany, of hypocrisy for condemning his stance while refusing to take in more arrivals themselves.

Source

• Daily Mail
• Euro News
• Image: Catholic News Agency

We could no longer look away.

The tragedy of a father and daughter from El Salvador drowning while he tried to save her from being swept away by the strong river current reminded the nation of the horror of the unfolding humanitarian crisis at the border.

We must see them.

Martínez was leading his family from El Salvador to legally seek asylum in the United States.

But he was not able to get through the long wait at the border crossing, so he sought to swim the Rio Grande, stand on American soil, turn himself and his family in to Border Patrol and ask for asylum there.

All of that is legal.

But the river took them before they had a chance.

Martínez and his daughter were not the only migrants to die this week.

A 20-year-old migrant woman and three small children were found dead in the desert near McAllen, Texas, having succumbed to the searing heat.

In addition to these deaths, the news from last weekend of migrant children held in detention in Border Patrol stations in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, without access to soap, toothbrushes, diapers or proper care, rightly caused an outcry from the public.

Instead of the border security debate dominating the immigration headlines, Americans are now more fully seeing the human suffering of desperate migrants fleeing from home to a country that they hope will be a place of refuge.

The numbers of migrants coming are staggering.

People protest against U.S. immigration policies on the American side, right, of the Mexico-America border near Tijuana on Dec. 10, 2018. RNS photo by Jair Cabrera Torres

The month of May saw almost 133,000 apprehensions at the U.S. southern border, with 96,000 consisting either of family units or unaccompanied children.

The large numbers of migrants now turning themselves in to Border Patrol and asking for asylum has overwhelmed our system.

Our laws require that we hear and process asylum claims and that anyone who sets foot on U.S. soil can claim asylum, but with the government's primary focus being on zero tolerance, deterrence, security, detention, deportation and keeping migrants away from the border, the number of families and children presenting themselves for asylum is too much to properly administer.

The Border Patrol is overwhelmed and chaos has ensued.

Hearing these stories this week reminded me of what I've seen in my own trips to the border in the past year, most recently to El Paso less than two months ago.

There, I connected with a network of churches receiving from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hundreds of asylum-seeking migrants a day.

The churches gave the migrants food and drink and provided a temporary place to rest before they continued their journey to join family in other parts of America.

I'll never forget seeing the hollow eyes on the faces of exhausted migrants huddled on cots in a church sanctuary that had been haphazardly turned into a migrant shelter in El Paso.

When I arrived, I was told that these migrants had been released by ICE that day to the church.

It was midafternoon, but what struck me was that they were so very tired.

They sat in the quiet church worship hall in silence.

Some slept.

Some just sat and stared.

Babies didn't even cry.

Mothers held their children close and just looked ahead.

No one said a word.

No laughter, no conversation.

No crying of the children. Just silence.

They were all so tired.

I was told by the pastors of the church that many of the migrants who came to them day after day suffered from violence, rape, extortion and threats of being forced into drug gangs.

Many of them saw loved ones murdered and they lived under threats of death at the hands of cartels and drug gangs.

Corrupt police and government officials could not protect the poor who were being used and extorted in these countries that are descending into lawlessness.

Yet, prayers from the pastors, shelter, food, love, hospitality, concern, and being received and embraced as fully human encouraged them greatly.

The work of Catholic, mainline Protestant and evangelical churches along the border over the past several months has been immense.

I've seen with my own eyes, and through my research with the Evangelical Immigration Table, churches engaging in this hard but needed work of receiving migrants in San Diego-Tijuana; Nogales, Ariz.; El Paso, Texas; and elsewhere.

These churches truly are being the hands and feet of Jesus.

But the other side of the work of the church is that it is often fellow Christians who come to the border from the south and make their way across.

I've heard from multiple sources that the majority of the migrants coming from Central America are evangelical Christians.

I was told by a church shelter manager in Las Cruces, New Mexico, that as many as 75 percent of the migrants they served were evangelicals.

Others in El Paso said the proportion of evangelical migrants was well over 50 percent. In significant ways, the ministry of receiving migrants by churches at the border is the ministry of the church embracing Christ himself.

Not long ago, a Nazarene pastor friend of mine was invited to meet with a group of asylum-seekers at the border.

Among them was a man named Oscar and his little girl.

He had fled to the U.S. to keep her safe.

They shared a meal and then Oscar, who said he was part of an evangelical church, told my friend something profound.

"Somos familia," he said. "Somos hermanos."

We are family. We are brothers.

Was this the same Oscar?

What matters is what the asylum-seeker my friend met said.

"Somos familia. Somos hermanos."

John Garland, pastor of San Antonio Mennonite Fellowship, has also recently written that approximately 80 percent of the migrants that his church receives are evangelical Christians.

I write this not because I think that evangelical Christians have more value than people of other religions or no religion at all, but because I think it is important for American Christians to know that the migrants coming to us are also our brothers and sisters in Christ.

They are family.

How we treat them and see them is how we treat Jesus (Matthew 25:40).

I believe that Jesus sees these desperate people. I believe they matter to him.

Jesus saw Óscar and Valeria. Jesus saw the woman and the three little children who died in the desert.

He sees all of the crowds of migrants, harassed and helpless and fleeing from a home where they are no longer safe to journey to a place they have never been.

He wants us to see them too.

Can we, like Jesus, be moved with compassion for the crowds of migrants coming to us? Can we pray for them and weep for migrants like Óscar and Valeria?

Jesus sees them.

Do we?

• Alan Cross

The Holy Father warned that when we allow fears and doubts to "condition our way of thinking and acting to the point of making us intolerant, closed and perhaps even - racist" - there is a serious problem.

For "in this way, fear deprives us of the desire and the ability to encounter the other, the person different from myself; it deprives me of an opportunity to encounter the Lord."

This wonderful idea of actually encountering the Lord, and all others, is one of Pope Francis' major themes. He is trying to inspire us to build not personal walls, nor national walls, but instead a "culture of encounter."

There are many lies that have been spread about migrants and refugees; lies that they are murderers, rapists and criminals of all sorts. But numerous studies point to the contrary.

The vast majority are good decent human beings who pay taxes while enjoying virtually no benefits.

They working at jobs most citizens will not do - like the back-breaking work of picking our vegetables and fruit, washing dishes and landscaping.

Furthermore, they add fresh vitality to our towns, cities and parishes.

They need us and we need them!

This is what Pope Francis' "culture of encounter" is all about.

"The progress of our peoples" said the pope "depends above all on our openness to being touched and moved by those who knock at our door. Their faces shatter and debunk all those false idols that can take over and enslave our lives; idols that promise an illusory and momentary happiness blind to the lives and sufferings of others."

Instead of building Pope Francis' welcoming "culture of encounter," several European countries including Bulgaria, Hungry, Slovenia, Macedonia, Austria and France (funded by the U.K.) have built barriers to keep out people who are fleeing armed conflicts and terrible poverty.

And in the U.S., the Trump administration's determination to lengthen the wall at the Mexican border and his policy of "zero-tolerance" - stepped-up apprehension and detention of migrants/refugees often fleeing armed conflict and drug gang violence, mass assembly-line criminal court trials, jail sentences and deportation back to the violence refugees were fleeing - is causing untold suffering.

I have been to the U.S.-Mexico border in southern Arizona, and have touched "The Wall" - the approximately 25 foot high steel barrier blocking Mexicans from entering the U.S.

It looks and feels unholy.

Thousands of refugees and migrants have died trying to walk far around the wall and through the unforgiving Arizona Sonoran desert.

Joanna Williams, director of education and advocacy for the Catholic-run Kino Border Initiative, located near the border in Nogales, Mexico, told me asylum seekers are turned back when they seek to turn themselves into Customs and Border Protection at U.S. ports of entry, and have to wait for many weeks or months before they have the opportunity to even ask for asylum.

Please prayerfully read the Holy Father's World Day of Migrants and Refugees message.

It will very likely inspire you to stand against the meanness - and stand with our desperate brothers and sisters who are knocking at our nations' doors begging for Christian kindness.

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net.

In 2016, the 193 members of the UN - including New Zealand - agreed unanimously that protecting those who are forced to flee and supporting the countries that shelter them are shared international responsibilities which must be borne equitably and predictably.

In 2017, Pope Francis launched the Share the Journey campaign with Caritas Internationalis to encourage communities worldwide to welcome, protect, promote, and integrate migrants.

"The plight of people forced to flee their homes is something that should concern all of us.

We have a common interest in helping to welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants in an orderly way.

This is a global problem that requires a global solution and the GCM aims to help provide a safer, regular and orderly arrangement for this," says Julianne Hickey, Director of Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand.

The GCM sets out 23 objectives for fostering cooperation among all relevant actors on migration.

It aims to set a best practice framework, which is increasingly important for New Zealand's Pacific reset as the region braces itself for an increase in climate-induced migration and need for community engagement.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand, as one of four organisations approved for the new Community Organisation Refugee Sponsorship (CORS) programme, is leading the coordination of a number of Catholic organisations who are supporting a refugee family to settle in New Zealand.

Local communities are keen to welcome refugees and migrants now, and policy decisions to help facilitate this process are welcome and necessary.

Supplied; Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand

More information on our approach to migrants and refugees is available online at www.caritas.org.nz.