As Pope
Francis has remarked in his recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti, migration
is part of the future of our world. And he reminds us of our responsibility for
our brothers and sisters in need. We must defend the centrality of the
human person and “protect the rights of its citizens, and assure assistance and
acceptance to migrants.”
He continues, “I realize that some
people are hesitant and fearful with regard to migrants. I consider this part
of our natural instinct of self-defense. Yet it is also true that an individual
and a people are only fruitful and productive if they are able to develop a
creative openness to others. I ask everyone to move beyond those primal
reactions because ‘there is a problem when doubts and fears condition our way
of thinking and acting to the point of making us intolerant, closed and perhaps
even – without realizing it – racist. In this way, fear deprives us of the
desire and the ability to encounter the other.’
We pray that we may open our hearts to the hungry, the homeless, and the poor.
