Pope Francis is welcomed by French President Emmanuel Macron as he arrives at the final session of the “Rencontres Mediterraneennes” meeting at the Palais du Pharo, in Marseille, France on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. Francis, during a two-day visit, will join Catholic bishops from the Mediterranean region on discussions that will largely focus on migration.
The Mediterranean, Francis told Macron and a gathering of regional bishops, “cries out for justice, with its shores that on the one hand exude affluence, consumerism and waste, while on the other there is poverty and instability.” France is a “host country” to migrants—especially to asylum seekers—and is supporting European solidarity policies, including through financing and fighting human trafficking, the French presidency said. The Vatican provided no readout of the meeting.
“May we let ourselves be moved by the stories of so many of our unfortunate brothers and sisters who have the right both to emigrate and not to emigrate, and not become closed in indifference,” Francis said. “In the face of the terrible scourge of the exploitation of human beings, the solution is not to reject but to ensure, according to the possibilities of each, an ample number of legal and regular entrances.
“Those who risk their lives at sea do not invade, they look for welcome, for life,” he said. “As for the emergency, the phenomenon of migration is not so much a short-term urgency, always good for fueling alarmist propaganda, but a reality of our times.” History’s first Latin American pope has made the plight of migrants a priority of his 10-year pontificate. For his first trip as pope, he traveled to Lampedusa to honor migrants who had drowned while attempting to cross the sea.
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