Migrants must be “welcomed and protected”, we cannot “send them back like ping-pong”. The Pope underlined this on the return flight from Marseille, answering a question about the plight of migrants. He began his pontificate in Lampedusa by denouncing indifference. Ten years later he asks Europe to show solidarity. For ten years he has been relaunching the same message, does this mean he has failed? “No. – the Pope’s response – . I would say that the growth of awareness has been slow. Today there is awareness of the migration problem, which has arrived like a hot potato that no one knows how to take. Angela Merkel once said that it could be solved by going to Africa and raising the living standards of the African people. There have been very bad cases, where migrants were sent back, like in ping-pong, despite knowing that many times they end up in concentration camps, worse than before. Those people suffer because it is the reign of terror. They are slaves. We can’t send them back like ping-pong. Migrants must be welcomed, protected, promoted and integrated. If you cannot integrate him into your country, accompany him to his land, but do not leave him in the hands of cruel criminals, wretched criminals who do so much harm. This is the migration problem.”
«There are groups of people who are dedicated to saving lives at sea. They tell terrible things. I invited the head of the Mediterranean NGO, Luca Casarini, to the Synod. From Lampedusa – he explained – ten years ago things improved, then we had no information, they didn’t tell us the truth, today there is more awareness, a lot of people talk about it. They told me: look at that woman, she is a doctor: she went among the corpses to look for the face of her daughter, because she hadn’t found it. We must take these situations to heart. She will make us more human, more divine. I would like it to be like a cry: let’s be careful, let’s do something. I also wanted to say that there are five countries in difficulty due to the arrival of so many migrants. In some of these there are places, towns, voids: please let these towns make the effort to integrate. We need it. Well-conducted immigrations are an asset.” Of Marseille, Bergoglio said that «it is a civilization of many cultures, a port of migrants. Marseille is a culture of encounters. Muslims, Jews and Christians coexist. We do coexistence. It’s a culture of helping. It’s a creative mosaic. A port that is a message to Europe. Marseille welcomes, recipes and makes a synthesis, without denying the identity. We must take inspiration from other parts.”
