Pope in Marseille: Migration must be addressed with humanity, solidarity

• Urgent need

In his remarks, Pope Francis reiterated the urgent need to address the tragedies of migration, which have transformed the Mediterranean into a “cemetery”, with concrete actions, not words, but, most importantly, with humanity.

He underscored that immigrants who lose their lives at sea as they seek a better future are not mere numbers, but people with faces and names fleeing from conflicts, poverty and environmental disasters.

• Duty of humanity and solidarity

In this epochal migration crisis, the Pope said, while migrants find themselves at a crossroads between life and death, as recalled by the protagonist of the book “Hermanito” (“Little Brother”) at the end of his perilous journey from Guinea to Europe, European countries stand at a crossroads of civilization.

"On the one hand, there is fraternity, which makes the human community flourish with goodness; on the other, indifference, which bloodies the Mediterranean.”

• "It is a duty of humanity; it is a duty of civilization!”

He insisted that rescuing people in danger at sea is a duty both of humanity and civilization. “God will bless us, if on land and at sea we know how to take care of the weakest, if we can overcome the paralysis of fear and the disinterest that, with velvet gloves, condemns others to death,” the Pope said.

“We cannot be resigned to seeing human beings treated as bargaining chips, imprisoned and tortured in atrocious ways; we can no longer watch the drama of shipwrecks, caused by the cruel trafficking and the fanaticism of indifference. People who are at risk of drowning when abandoned on the waves must be rescued. It is a duty of humanity; it is a duty of civilization!”

• Religions in the Mediterranean called to set an example

To address the crisis, Pope Francis continued, representatives of different religions, and specifically of the three Mediterranean Abrahamic monotheisms, which all teach hospitality and love for the stranger in the name of God, are called to set an example.

“We believers must be exemplary in mutual and fraternal welcome,” he stressed, decrying “the woodworm of extremism and the ideological plague of fundamentalism that corrodes the authentic life of communities.”

• Marseille: a mosaic of hope

The Pope referred specifically to the complex multi-cultural and multi-religious reality of Marseille, faced today with increasing inter-communal and social tensions, saying that the French port city “stands at a crossroads: encounter or confrontation”.

In this regard, Pope Francis praised and encouraged solidarity and “concrete commitment to promoting human development and integration” of migrants carried out by several organizations involved between communities, and specifically the inter-faith NGO Marseille-Espérance.

“You are the Marseille of the future,” he said. “Strive ahead without discouragement, so that this city may be for France, Europe and the world a mosaic of hope.”

• Let us make a mosaic of peace together

“Brothers, sisters, let us face these problems together; let us not cause hope to shipwreck; let us together make a mosaic of peace!”

"It is cruelty, a terrible lack of humanity," Pope Francis said, referring to the situation of migrants in the Mediterranean in general.

It will have echoes of Francis' first visit as pope - in 2013 to Lampedusa, where he paid tribute to migrants who died at sea and condemned "the globalisation of indifference".

Nearly, 130,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, according to government data, nearly double the figure for the same period of 2022.

That, Italy's right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says, makes migration a problem for the entire EU, not just the burden of frontline receiving countries such as Italy, Malta and Spain.

While Francis has said often that migrants should be shared among the 27 EU countries, his overall openness towards migrants, including once calling their exclusion "scandalous, disgusting and sinful," has riled conservative politicians, not least in France.

"He behaves like a politician, or the head of an NGO, and not a pope," said Gilles Pennelle, general director of the far-right Rassemblement National party of Marine Le Pen, President Emmanuel Macron's main challenger in last year's presidential vote.

"I think that the Christian message is one of welcome on an individual level, but it (migration) is an immense political problem and whether or not to welcome migrants is for politicians to decide," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The French bishops deliberately chose the diverse port city for the week-long "Mediterranean Encounters" event. It has a long history of migration - particularly from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa - and the influences of these different cultures are still felt in its streets.

"It is a cosmopolitan city that has not completely embraced the French republican idea, where many keep their double-triple identities," Cesare Mattina, a sociologist at the University of Aix-Marseille, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Marseille is a rare French city where migrant populations still live in the centre. Indeed, a former bishop of the city was fond of saying: "In Marseille you can go around the world in 80 hours, not 80 days," a play of words on the title of the Jules Verne novel.

But Marseille is no immigration utopia. The city has many of the problems that plague most urban centres - crime, drugs, racism and indifference.