Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Pope’s ‘sad journey’ to Lesbos challenges EU Immigration Policy
Pope’s ‘sad journey’ to Lesbos challenges EU Immigration Policy
May 15, 2025 12:31 AM

Pope Francis’ words to journalistson board the chartedflight yesterday to the Greek island of Lesbos struck an emotional chord:“It is a sad journey,” he said. “We are going to see the greatest humanitarian tragedy after World War II.”

As Francis deplaned he was greeted by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The pope expressed his gratitude for Greece’sgenerosity to Middle Eastern refugees, many of e to Europe fleeing from desperate situations.

Francis spent only 5 hours on the small Greek island nearthe cost of Turkey, while meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Ieronymos II, the archbishop of Athens and Greece. He took time to speak to refugees from regions of economic depravity, religious persecution and military strife. He then held a service to bless those who have died trying to reachEurope.

According to RomeReports’ coverageof the one-day papal visit, Francis traveled to the Moria refugee camp, “a place where the migrants arrive and can not leave freely.”

The camp is home to some 2,500 people who are waiting for a response from the government in order to be granted refugee asylum.

The Pope listened to their stories and dried their tears, as he listened, for over an hour, to the tragedies that have brought them there.

While there, he first greeted orphans, children between 8 and 16 who have left behind everything…Many said only their country of origin: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and especially Syria. Most were Muslims, but also Christians and Yazidis.

In a controversial move challenging tightening EU immigration and asylum policies, Francis brought back with him on the papal flight to Rome 12 Muslim refugees, who will be taken in by the Sant’Egidio Community in Rome. We read in The Guardian:

Fuelling belief that the Catholic church is at odds with the EU’s stance on the crisis, Pope Francis took 12 refugees back to the Vatican. An official confirmed all those taken from the camp were Syrian Muslims, six of them minors who arrived Lesbos before the deportation deal came into effect…Two e from Damascus, and one from Deir Azzor (in the area occupied by Isis). Their homes had been bombed. The Vatican will take responsibility for bringing in and maintaining the three families. The initial hospitality will be taken care of by the Community of Sant’Egidio.

During the Acton Institute’s April 20th Rome conference “Freedom with Justice:Rerum Novarum and the New Things of Our Time” the urgent subject of global migration — as in the freedom of movement between nations for economic reasons and escaping religious persecution — will be one the “new things” addressed in light of 125 years of modern Catholic social teaching.Learn more at acton.org/Rome2016 and follow on social media via #125onFreedom.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Abraham Kuyper and the ‘Bearer of Principle’
“What might Abraham Kuyper teach us as Americans prepare to go to the polls next year?” asks David T. Koyzis in this week’s Acton Commentary. “I believe that he can help us to vote more intelligently by clarifying the true nature of representation in a democratic munity.” Kuyper treated representation in Ons Program [Our Program] published in 1879 in the platform of the newly established Anti-Revolutionary Party in the Netherlands. The delegate conception he titled the “imperative mandate,” in which...
Facebook and the Institutional Forms of Social Good
Over at Think Christian, I take a look at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and derive a lesson from Jesus’ interaction with the rich young man in Mark 10. A basic lesson we can take from the decision to organize the initiative as an LLC rather than a traditional non-profit corporation is that pursuing social good is possible in a wide variety of institutional forms. A for-profit incorporation doesn’t preclude a main, or even primary, purpose aimed at social good. Just...
Does Microlending Solve Poverty?
If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. But what if a man knows how to fish but can’t afford a fishing pole? Or what if he knows how to sew but can’t afford a sewing machine? Can farm, but lacks a plow? The recognition that some people have skills to make themselves self-sufficient but lack capital to buy the tools they...
Rev. Sirico: Fox TV’s unserious ‘Lucifer’ nothing to get upset about
Fox TV is prepping for a Jan. 25 release of a new show titled “Lucifer,” where “bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell, the original fallen angel, Lucifer Morningstar has abandoned his throne and retired to L.A., where he owns Lux, an upscale nightclub.” Fox adds helpfully, “He’s no angel.” A report by Barbara Hollingsworth on notes that “a number of faith-based and conservative watchdog groups are panning Lucifer.” Among others, she interviewed Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president and...
More Fear Mongering on GMO Foods
In an email last week, GMOInside.org – a coalition opposed to genetically engineered and genetically modified organisms, which counts shareholder activist group As You Sow a member – blasted an email chock-a-block with material for two previous posts (here and here). And es a third PowerBlog post about the activists’ effort to roll back Senate support for the Safe and Affordable Food Labeling (SAFE) Act, dubbed the DARK Act (Deny Americans the Right to Know Act – get it?). Readers...
6 Quotes: The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae)
Fifty years ago today, on December 7, 1965, Pope Paul VI promulgated the Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis humanae). This document produced by the Second Vatican Council clarified the Catholic Church’s views on religious liberty, changed the way the Church interacted with states, and helped foster ecumenical relations with other faith traditions. Since the release of Dignitatis humanae, the importance of defending religious freedom has e even more necessary. As Archbiship Charles J. Chaput has said, “In some ways, the...
Aslan’s Song of Stewardship
When wethinkabout “stewardship,” our minds tend to revert to the material and the predictable. We think about money or the allocation of resources. We think about growing crops or creating goods or financial investment andgenerosity. For the Christian, however, stewardship goes much further, weaving closely together the tangible andtranscendent in all areas of life.“Stewardship is far more than the handling of our money,” write Lester DeKoster and Gerard Berghoef. “Stewardship is the handling of life, and time, and destiny.” In...
3 Modern Economic Lessons from an Ancient Tax on Windows
King William III of England needed money, so in 1696 he decided to implement a new property tax. To make sure the tax was progressive (i.e., affected the rich more than the poor), the parliament devised a seemingly clever idea: they’d use the number of windows as an index for the value of a house. The assumption was that larger homes, presumably owned by the wealthy, would have more windows than the houses of the poor. All a tax assessor...
The Federal ‘Anti-Poverty’ Program that Taxes the Poor
Imagine you’re at the checkout line at the supermarket and the clerk asks how much e your family earns each year. Offended, you ask why that is any of her business. “We need to know to determine how much sales tax you need to pay,” the checker politely explains. “If you’re classified as the ‘working poor’ you need to pay more sales tax.” “I think you have that backwards,” you helpfully add. “You mean the working poor need to pay...
Italian nativity scene adds holiday sparkle to downtown Grand Rapids
Special window display at the Acton Building For the holiday season this year, the Acton Institute has a very special window display facing Veteran’s Park and Fulton Street in downtown Grand Rapids. The window display, “Wise men still seek Him” features a rare nativity set, Cathedral glass-inspired paint, and more. Acton’s president and co-founder, Rev. Robert Sirico, inspired the work, wanting to create a proper display for his personal precepio (extended nativity scene). It’s said that in 1223, St. Francis...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved