This Sunday, September 26 is the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
An opportunity seized by Pope Francis, from a window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter's Square, to address a very special request to the world: "We are called to build an ever more inclusive world, which excludes no one".
"I unite with those who celebrate this day in the world", underlined the sovereign pontiff while greeting in front of him many foreign communities deploying banners.
"It is necessary to walk together, without fear, by standing at the side of those who are most vulnerable: migrants, refugees, displaced persons, victims of trafficking, abandoned", he said while welcoming migrants, one of the main themes of his pontificate, which began in 2013.
"Let’s not close our eyes to their hope”
The Pope, himself from a family of Italian migrants settled in Argentina, called on the faithful and tourists to go and look at a monumental sculpture in clay and bronze that he had installed in Saint Peter's Square in September 2019, representing 140 migrants from various countries, religions or historical periods, huddling on a boat.
"Let us not close our eyes to their hope," that of "starting to live again," said François.
The Pope had previously denounced more generally “the closure”, “the root of so many great evils in history, of absolutism which often generated dictatorships and so much violence against what is different”.
Miscellaneous
Pas-de-Calais: 126 migrants saved in the Channel by the French Navy
World
Vatican: Pope distributes 15,000 ice creams to prisoners
Pope Francis
Refugees
Migrants
World