Pope calls for pan-European action on migration

Pope Francis called for a pan-European response to migration on Saturday, denouncing “belligerent nationalisms” and warning against the Mediterranean becoming “the graveyard of dignity” due to the hundreds of drownings there.

Francis made a long speech in support of taking in refugees at the end of a church summit on Mediterranean issues in Marseille, a French port that has long been a crossroads of cultures and religions.

“There is a cry of pain that resonates most of all, and it is turning the Mediterranean, the ‘mare nostrum’, from the cradle of civilization into the ‘mare mortuum’, the graveyard of dignity: it is the stifled cry of migrant brothers and sisters,” he said, using Latin terms meaning “our sea” and “sea of death”.

Francis was greeted by President Emmanuel Macron at the blustery portside where the conference facility is located. Francis and Macron were scheduled to meet in private later on Saturday before Francis returned to Rome.

The pope started the day by visiting a facility for the destitute managed by the sisters’ order Saint Mother Teresa founded in Marseilles’ Saint Mauront neighbourhood, one of the country’s poorest.

Later during the conference, he urged for “an ample number of legal and regular entrances” of migrants, emphasising the importance of embracing people who are fleeing conflict, starvation, and poverty rather than “preservation of one’s own wellbeing”.

About 178,500 migrants entered Europe through the Mediterranean this year, according to the UNHCR, while about 2,500 perished or disappeared.

Several European nations, like Italy, Hungary, and Poland, have governments that are strongly opposed to immigration.

Francis urged people to “hear the cries of pain” coming from the Middle East and North Africa.

“How greatly we need this at the present juncture, when antiquated and belligerent nationalisms want to make the dream of the community of nations fade!” he said. He did not name any countries.

Francis frequently advocates for sharing migrants among the 27 EU nations, but his general acceptance of migrants, including once labelling their exclusion “scandalous, disgusting, and sinful,” has infuriated conservative leaders.

Migration concerns had dominated his 27-hour journey. On Friday, he declared that saving migrants who are in danger of drowning at sea was “a duty of humanity” and that preventing rescues was “a gesture of hate.”

(With agency inputs)