How many immigrants does the Vatican City take in per year? Oh that's right! Zero.Wosbald wrote:+JMJ+
Pope meets new arrivals in Rome, says helping migrants is moral duty
Pope Francis blesses a cross featuring a refugee's life vest during a meeting with recently arrived refugees from the Greek island of Lesbos at the Vatican Dec. 19, 2019. The pope met 33 refugees and migrants who had arrived in Rome two weeks ago. (CNS/Stefano Dal Pozzolo)
Vatican City -- Before blessing a large resin cross constructed around a used orange life vest, Pope Francis insisted human beings have a "binding" moral obligation to save those whose lives are threatened, including the lives of migrants and refugees.
"We must rescue and save because we are all responsible for the lives of our neighbor and the Lord will ask us to account for them at the moment of judgment," the pope said Dec. 19 as he met 33 migrants and refugees brought to Rome two weeks earlier by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner.
The group, which included 14 children and teens, arrived in Rome from the Greek island of Lesbos Dec. 4. Most were originally from Afghanistan, but there also was a woman from Togo and a young mother and her 3-month-old baby from Cameroon. The group included both Christians and Muslims.
The life vest in the center of the cross, which the pope blessed and had hung in an alcove by the guest elevators in the Apostolic Palace, was picked up by a migrant rescue organization in the central Mediterranean Sea July 3, 2019. A small plaque below the cross gives the date along with the GPS coordinates of where it was recovered.
Francis said he wanted the jacket to be part of a cross because the cross symbolizes both suffering and redemption through the triumph of Jesus. "The unknown migrant, who died hoping for a new life, participates in this victory," the pope said.
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No one knows who the life vest in the cross belonged to, he said. "We are facing another death caused by injustice. Yes, because it is injustice that forces many migrants to leave their homelands. It is injustice that obliges them to cross deserts and endure abuse and torture in detention camps. It's injustice that rejects them and makes them die at sea."
Francis said he wanted to display the life vest "'crucified' on the cross to remind us that we must keep our eyes open, keep our hearts open and to remind everyone of the binding obligation to save every human life, a moral obligation that unites believers and nonbelievers."
"How can we not hear the desperate cry of our brothers and sisters who prefer facing a stormy sea rather than dying slowly in Libyan detention camps, places of torture and despicable slavery?" the pope asked.
Francis called for the closure of all detention camps in Libya, where many of the migrants and refugees attempting to reach Europe are held for a time.
And, he said, "we must set aside economic interests because at the center must be the person, every person whose life and dignity are precious in God's eyes."
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Hashi, why do you allow religious propaganda to persist in the Tank? We have a religion forum. Why are we inundated constantly with the Pope's opinion on our moral duties? There is absolutely nothing political about a religious leader telling me how I should be living my life, or what morals I should have.
