Pope Francis has called on European governments to welcome migrants rather than the current practice of viewing them as invaders, striding into in a hugely sensitive political debate again inflamed by mass arrivals on the second day of his visit to France’s Mediterranean port of Marseille.
The pontiff made this call just hours before he leads a mass in Marseille’s main stadium — usually the venue for rugby or football matches — in a gigantic event due to be attended by French President Emmanuel Macron.
‘Those who risk their lives at sea do not invade, they look for welcome,’ Francis said in a speech closing a conference of bishops and young people from around the Mediterranean.
Migration is ‘a reality of our times, a process that involves three continents around the Mediterranean and that must be governed with wise foresight, including a European response,’ the pontiff added.
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Noting the risk to the lives of migrants if they are not taken to safety, he warned against turning “the Mediterranean, the mare nostrum, from the cradle of civilisation into the mare mortuum, the graveyard of dignity.”
Francis’ 35-minute speech drew a standing ovation from his audience, but his position on migration was unlikely to please Macron and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who were both present and plan tougher measures to control arrivals.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the pope’s forceful interventions come as the migration debate has been stoked by mass arrivals on the Italian island of Lampedusa last week.
Speaking at a monument to people lost at sea on his arrival in Marseille on Friday, the pontiff had insisted that “people who are at risk of drowning when abandoned on the waves must be rescued”.
He thanked aid groups rescuing migrants in danger at sea, condemning efforts to prevent their work as ‘gestures of hate’.