«Stop! Convert! The tears and blood of migrants cry out to God and their suffering reaches Him. The money taken from the vulnerability of the poor will not give peace, nor honor, nor a future.” The Pope raises his voice, as John Paul II already did in Agrigento against the mafia, and the crowd, gathered in Plaza del Cristo de La Laguna, in Tenerife, welcomes his words with long, warm applause. Leo XIV calls human traffickers to change their lives, asks for conversion from «those who profit from desperation; to those who organize death routes, traffic in human beings, withhold documents, exploit workers, threaten women, deceive families and transform the suffering of others into a business.”
Just as his predecessor did in the Valley of the Temples – “One day the judgment of God will come!”, John Paul had said – he reminds traffickers: “You will have to appear before divine justice”, for “every life lost, every family deceived, every body subjected, every woman threatened, every worker exploited”.
Order to break the chains and free “those you keep under your dominion. Return what you have stolen and repair what you can,” he continues. “Return while there is still time, because God’s mercy can reach even the most hardened sinner, but it enters only through the narrow door of truth, justice and conversion.”
After having thanked, in the first meeting in the refugee center of Raice, those who welcome the migrants, the Government, the various institutions and “many men and women of good will, who make this concrete humanitarian aid possible, which restores hope and dignity to many people”, he also speaks of integration, of rights and duties, of “the charity received is transformed into shared responsibility”. Because welcoming also means «opening spaces so that a person can feel co-responsible. Thus, yesterday’s stranger can be today’s brother and neighbor.”
He asks Catholics not only to be attentive to practical aspects so that “integration is not reduced to a social task, however necessary”. In addition to bread, shelter, language, work, protection, migrants need to find “a community capable of offering, with the testimony of life and words, paths to knowing Jesus Christ, always respecting the conscience and freedom of each person”. Far from trampling on the conscience and culture of those arriving, we must also “share with respect and humility the treasure that supports our action and our hope”. This means “evangelizing” and being “evangelized”. Because “a Church that welcomes is also a Church that announces, offering Christ without imposing him and which, at the same time, receives the Gospel from the hands of the poor”.
And then he adds that, if «a human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent when faced with the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of rescue, when faced with the cemeteries of the sea», there is also «a silent shipwreck which is that of finding oneself alone. If, therefore, “every life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family”, integrating means “preventing this second shipwreck” which exposes those who are “without language, without ties, without work, without trust” to the aims of “those who take advantage of vulnerability”. Instead, we need to “help those who have arrived injured not to remain stuck in their pain forever, but to be able to get back on their feet, recognize their gifts and offer them to the community”.
And in order to be able to share one’s gifts, he had already said it in his first meeting at the refugee center which, not by chance, is called Raice, roots, one must not erase one’s origins. He asks migrants and those who welcome them “not to erase the history of those who arrive nor to demand that they leave behind everything that is part of their memory”, but also not to create “parallel worlds, closed to each other, where people live together without actually meeting”.
The Pope recalls rights and duties and explains that “integration is a mutual journey: those who arrive learn to inhabit a new land, and those who welcome learn to enlarge their home without diluting their identity or closing their hearts to the encounter”.
For this, a journey is necessary. And migrants “have a noble and necessary part of this journey: to open up with trust to the community that welcomes you, learn its language, respect its laws, know its customs, participate in common life and offer your gifts with gratitude”. But also «the welcoming society has duties towards those who arrive; and those who are welcomed in turn discover that dignity, recognized as a right, flourishes when it is transformed into responsibility and a sincere desire to build together with others. Thus, those who arrived as foreigners can rediscover bonds, rebuild trust and feel like a living part of a community. This is a precious form of mercy.”
The migrants prepared the questions and testimonies in Spanish, but the Pope asks, in the center which hosts around 700 of them, he speaks in French after having made sure, also asking in English, which language is best understood. They tell them that they want to be recognized as people”, that “no one abandons their land voluntarily if they can live there in peace”. They tell of deaths at sea. Khalid explains to the Pope that he left Morocco twice, the first time the boat capsized and twenty of his companions died. His father cried when he saw him return home alive and told him not to try again. But he tried and now, after suffering and drama, he is studying Spanish and is building a new life. They are accompanied by Don Darwin, a Venezuelan priest who says: «This experience with migrants is a very hard one, but very enriching, which helps us grow in humanity». The same one who testifies, from Colombia, Thalia: «Thanks to Caritas and the Church here we have not only found a roof, but we have started to hope again».
