Pope decries indifference to migrants

Mar 23, 2016

By Gerard O’Connell
Pope Francis decried “the indifference” to the fate of the refugees and migrants in today’s world, as he opened the Holy Week celebrations in Rome on Palm Sunday, March 20. He recalled that just as Jesus “experienced indifference in his own flesh” to the point that “no one wished to take responsibility for his fate,” so also today “many do not want to take responsibility for the fate of the many marginalized people, the many migrants, the many refugees.”

With these words he brought the spotlight on the dramatic plight of migrants and refugees as country after country in Europe and elsewhere throw up barriers to prevent these desperate people, who are fleeing war and poverty, from entering. On Friday, Mar 18, the European Union sought to pass the buck to Turkey in a manner that raises serious concern about its respect for international humanitarian law and is widely perceived as offering no real solution to this enormous human tragedy.

Francis again highlighted this inhuman situation, the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II, with a powerful symbolic gesture on Holy Thursday, March 24, when he washed the feet of 12 refugees at a centre that gives them hospitality in Rome.

The Pope’s entire homily on Palm Sunday was focused on the humility of Jesus. He reminded people that Jesus did not save us by “powerful miracles,” instead “he emptied himself, and humbled himself.” He “did not cling to the glory that was his as the Son of God, but became the Son of man in order to be in solidarity with us sinners in all things, yet, he was without sin.” Even more, “Jesus lived among us in ‘the condition of a servant’; not of a king or a prince, but of a servant. Therefore he humbled himself, and the abyss of his humiliation, as Holy Week shows us, seems to be bottomless.”

He recalled that “the first sign of this love ‘without end’ is the washing of the feet” when Jesus, the Lord and Master, “stoops to his disciples’ feet, as only servants would have done,” showing us that “true love consists in concrete service.”

He said, “Jesus comes to save us. We are called to choose his way: the way of service, of giving, of forgetfulness of ourselves.” He encouraged everyone to “walk this path, pausing in these days to gaze upon the Crucifix, the ‘royal seat of God,’ to learn about the humble love which saves and gives life, so that we may give up all selfishness, and the seeking of power and fame.” --America