The attacks aim to eliminate the threat of Hezbollah strikes on northern Israel.

Bernard Toutounji, National Director of Aid for the Church in Need (ACN) in Australia and New Zealand, says the Church is struggling to support the million people who have fled their homes in southern Lebanon.

Beirut, Mount Lebanon and Lebanon's northern regions in particular are bearing the brunt of the internally displaced refugees.

The pontifical charity has announced an international emergency campaign to raise at least 1 million Euros (about $1,8 million NZD), Toutounji says. It will help the Catholic Church in Lebanon cope with the tremendous challenges Christians are suffering.

What the Church is doing to help

The Catholic Church has already sprung into action in Lebanon's northern regions, as it fulfils its Biblical mandate to help people in need. It hopwa donations will help relieve the desperate situation.

The Church has opened facilities such as parish halls and retreat houses to all those fleeing the most dangerous areas, Toutounji says.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of religious or ethnic affiliation.

ACN has already reached out to the seven dioceses and five religious congregations most directly involved in relief efforts.

Toutounji says the money ACN raises will be used to address a variety of needs, including food, sanitary products, mattresses and covers, medication and other essentials.

Many of the Christians in southern Lebanon are farmers. The attacks have prevented them from harvesting their olive and tobacco crops, leaving them without any income.

Children's education has been directly affected, with Catholic schools needing financial help Toutounji says. He explains that while most Catholic schools have opened for online classes, many parents in war-affected regions are unlikely to find work and they will struggle to pay tuition fees.

Critical situation

Although the crisis is affecting the whole country, the worst areas are in the border regions between Israel and Lebanon. Christians are a predominant group in this area.

ACN says most families are being separated.

Many mothers and children are sheltering in Church facilities or with relatives and, despite exposing themselves to danger, fathers often stay in their family homes to protect their property from being stolen.

"Lebanon has been going from crisis to crisis over the past decades, suffering from political instability, an influx of refugees from regional wars, an economic meltdown, the Beirut Port explosion which levelled large parts of the city, and now these attacks from Israel" ACN says.

"Despite all this, the Church has continued to serve the people, providing material and spiritual support at every turn. ACN has stood by our project partners in Lebanon, and we will not abandon them now as they face another hour of need.

"We are confident that our friends and benefactors will understand the urgency of supporting the Church in Lebanon to carry out God's work."

Source

• Aid to the Church in Need

The times do not favour it. It's not that there are few migrants and refugees to bother about. The difficulty is that they are many and growing.

Welcoming, not blaming

People who are doing it hard, as so many Australians and others are, in a time of gross inequality and economic pressure, readily see migrants and refugees as a cause of their own discontents and turn on them.

In the United States, Great Britain and in Europe we have seen how dangerous this behaviour is, how it can be inflamed by politicians and by social media, and how it threatens peace and civil order.

The same effects of economic pressures, ecological changes and armed conflicts are also driving more people to leave their homes and to seek safety and a decent life.

Many are displaced by war, discrimination and famine in their own nations. Many seek protection in other nations. People displaced in Myanmar and Gaza and Sudan attract the most attention, but are only a few of those fleeing from violence and poverty.

In prosperous times many people in developed nations are sympathetic to refugees and migrants and welcome them into their own societies.

In hard times, however, xenophobia spreads and is exploited by politicians who vilify refugees and demand that the nation be closed to immigrants.

This is notable in the United States and in many European nations, where small radical groups protest violently against immigrants and refugees, as well as against local minority groups. Governments often respond by cutting immigration and excluding refugees.

Australia, which had already adopted punitive measures to prevent people seeking protection, has come under similar pressure.

That is not surprising. People who struggle to find accommodation or to keep work can easily be led to see as threats people coming to Australia. They believe that governments should solve local problems first and only then admit others to Australia.

Although such opinions may not make economic sense and are self-centred, they are understandable.

The conduct of politicians and ideologues who spread false rumours against people from other cultures, stir up violent demonstrations, and depict refugees and immigrants from unfavoured nations as dangerous people who should be locked up, is less forgivable.

Our human family

In these times it is important to plead the cause of refugees.

It is even more important to open our minds and hearts to all the persons who are doing it hard, and not to barrack for some of them while lumping together others as things and not as persons.

As we reflect on the hardships which many people who live in Australia must bear, feel compassion for them, and argue for change in our unequal economy, our hearts should also open to the stories of people who have been forced from their homes and who seek protection and a new life in Australia.

Australians who do it hard and refugees are not competitors but our brothers and sisters.

In hard times it is easy to forget people.

Migrant and Refugee Sunday is a time for remembering. The need to remember and the decencies of remembering are enshrined in war memorials and in phrases such as the one attached to the Holocaust, ‘Lest we forget'.

Remembering is also central to the Abrahamic religions, whether focused on the liberation of the Jews from Egypt, the death and rising of Jesus and the martyrs, or the revelation made to Muhammad.

The need to remember has enriched languages and created alphabets.

In recent weeks the local services in Gaza have emphasised the importance of remembering by taking precious time to gather and publish the names of the 34,000 people known to have been killed in Gaza.

They may no longer be seen as numbers, ciphers in military and strategic calculus, but as persons.

Each has a name, each is unique and precious. They share that dignity with each person who lives with hunger, illness and fear in Gaza, in Mynamar, in Sudan and central America, and with each person who has escaped beyond national borders to seek life for themselves and for their families in other nations.

The call to remember extends also to our personal and national history. For all Australians that includes the immigration to Australia, forced or voluntary, of our ancestors and and the hope of a better life that they nurtured.

For many of us this history included flight from famine in Ireland, from poverty, from religious and ethnic discrimination, or from the effects of war. Our history also extends to all the people whom at different times we have excluded - Asians, Africans, Jews and even our First Peoples.

We all own a history that evokes gratitude, pride and shame. Migrant and Refugee Sunday invites us to think and act generously.

• First published in Eureka Street
• Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services.

Revealed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on 13 June, this alarming figure underscores a growing global crisis.

The UNHCR attributed the surge in displacement to ongoing conflicts in regions such as Gaza, Sudan and Myanmar. The displaced population now mirrors the population size of Japan.

"Conflict remains a very, very big driver of mass displacement" stated UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi.

At the end of 2022, 117.3 million people were displaced, and this number grew to 120 million by April 2023.

This marks a significant increase from 110 million the previous year, continuing a 12-year trend of rising displacement figures.

Reflecting on his eight-year tenure, Grandi noted that the displacement numbers have more than doubled. He called it "a terrible indictment on the state of the world".

He also highlighted climate change as a factor exacerbating the crisis, driving both conflicts and population movements.

International law disregarded

The UNHCR declared 43 emergencies across 29 countries last year, a four-fold increase over previous years.

Grandi noted "the way conflicts are conducted ... in complete disregard" of international law and "often with the specific purpose of terrorising people".

"This, of course, is a powerful contributor to more displacement."

The UNHCR's report detailed that of the 117.3 million forcibly displaced at the end of 2023, 68.3 million were internally displaced within their countries.

The number of refugees and those needing international protection rose to 43.4 million.

Contrary to popular belief, most refugees do not migrate to wealthy nations.

"The vast majority of refugees are hosted in countries neighbouring their own, with 75 percent residing in low- and middle-income countries that together produce less than 20 percent of the world's income" the UNHCR said.

Displacement figures will continue to rise

Since it began in April 2023, Sudan's civil war has displaced over nine million people, contributing significantly to the rising numbers. Many Sudanese continue to seek refuge in Chad, one of the world's poorest nations. Similarly, ongoing conflicts in Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo have led to millions being displaced.

In Gaza the UN estimates that 1.7 million people, or 75 percent of the population, have been displaced due to the conflict. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine, following Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, has resulted in 750,000 newly displaced individuals within the country, with a total of 3.7 million internally displaced people by the end of 2023.

The UNHCR predicts that figures for those forcibly displaced will continue to rise unless there is a significant shift in international geopolitics.

Sources

UCA News

CathNews New Zealand

In our local park each junction of the path is marked by a stenciled message demanding a ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Large, mainly peaceful, demonstrations in favour of the people of Gaza and of Israel have been held in the major Australian cities.

The media have highlighted increased prejudice and threats made against Jewish people, and have also reported similar experiences by Muslims.

Protagonists for Israel and Hamas have urged the Government and people to support one side whole-heartedly and to reject totally the other.

This pressure to make such a choice is understandable after so many innocent people have been killed. But it should be rejected.

For the people of Israel and Gaza, and so for Australians, the real enemy is war itself.

We should privilege compassion for all the human beings whose own lives and relatives have been destroyed by war, including those in the Jewish and Palestinian communities in Australia.

The object of our policy should be a settlement that respects equally all the people in the region and is not built on deterrence.

Such a strategy may seem to be unrealistic.

But the alternative of endorsing the use of armed force by either side in order to annihilate its declared enemies and to turn its borderlands into shooting alleys is a sure recipe for deepening hatred and future conflict.

The families of those whom our chosen side has killed will breed and inspire the next generation of patriots, freedom fighters or terrorists, call them what you will.

They may very well be confused about what they stand for, but they will be sure about whom they stand against. The resulting entrenched hostility will then corrupt the civic values we claim to be at stake in endorsing the war.

Those who declare that the real enemy is war and who advocate for peace are usually criticised for being naively optimistic.

Some will denounce them as stooges of a hostile power. That may sometimes be the case, but not necessarily so. It is possible to recognise war to be the real enemy, while simultaneously recognising the complex challenges involved in avoiding war and encouraging peace.

In Israel, for example, the Government certainly has a duty to keep its people safe.

It is certainly responding to an attack by a group that wants to destroy Israel. That group is prepared to take and use hostages in order to deter military action.

It may also place its command posts and other military centres close to schools and hospitals, making it certain that many non-combatants are bound to be injured and killed in military action. Nor can a ceasefire be guaranteed to secure the return of hostages, the separation of civilians from combatants, and lead to peace.

These considerations, however, do not justify a war in which many people will die and be left destitute, in which there is no strategy for securing a just peace, and which will be followed by further human misery and the seeds of further wars.

Australia should focus on support for the people who are the victims of war and on pressing for an end to the war and for a just peace.

The focus on persons affected by the war extends beyond Israel and Gaza to Palestinian and Israeli communities in Australia.

They will have lost relatives to war, will be deeply concerned for their countries of origin and fearful for the future.

They should be able to express their convictions and solidarity with their kinsmen and plead their cause publicly in a way that does not lead to conflict with other opposed groups.

Media have a responsibility to report the activities and views of these groups without using them to make political points. This involves taking account of the complexity and volatility of public life.

Demonstrations allow people to take stands. They also draw in partisan people from outside the communities who seek disruption and confrontation.

In times of war these voices can always draw on such creative and tendentious reporting as that of the raped nuns of the First World War and the Weapons of Mass Destruction during the Iraq invasion.

Immigrant communities will always be vulnerable to racial and xenophobic discrimination, doubly so when racist attitudes recently evident in Australia are magnified by the lack of social cohesion associated with economic hardship. Both Muslims and Jews will be subject to racist abuse with all its memories of past trauma.

Seeing war as the enemy abroad entails working to heal and to soothe wounds in the local community, not to exacerbate them.

• Andrew Hamilton S.J. is a Eureka Street editorial consultant and a policy officer with Jesuit Social Services. He taught theology for many years, has contributed widely to theological and religious journals and has had a long-standing engagement with refugee communities and issues.
• First published in Eureka Street

Presbyterian Support South Canterbury helped a lot. Still does, in fact.

Until 2010, her Middle East country of Yemen was very peaceful, Al-Hoot says. Then in 2014 civil war broke out.

She escaped the country for Malaysia with her young son and parents the following year, leaving everything behind.

It took her five-and-a-half worrying years to be recognised officially as a refugee.

Finding freedom

Then she was asked what she thought about New Zealand and did she agree with its immigration rules? She said she did.

"My Mum didn't accept it at the beginning, she was very worried, but my Dad was the opposite. He said New Zealand was a nice place, the Government supports multicultural people, different ethnicities and religions."

After spending time at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre she moved to Timaru. A massive crowd was waiting to welcome her and her son.

"I saw a big welcome sign and a lot of people that just came to say welcome, and we hope you have a great life here.

"I met so many people - about 20 people, and they were very nice."

That was two-and-a-half years ago.

Settling in

Al-Hoot now helps former refugees settle in the community through the Presbyterian Support South Canterbury service.

She also has work with Presbyterian Support as a cultural adviser.

This week the community celebrated 100 former refugees settling in the Timaru District, where Al-Hoot cut a cake to honour the occasion.

Now she's settled and happy, she wants to show others that they could do what she has done.

Many people and services have helped her maintain a positive attitude, she says.

"I'm very grateful and very fortunate for the services here. The government support and the community are really generous and lovely people.

"I hope to do more for this town, and this country.''

She has family - including her parents - living in Malaysia and she's able to talk to them each day.

Source

• Stuff

The Asylum Seekers Support Trust (ASST), a charity relying on donations, provides assistance to approximately 400 asylum seekers across the country.

These individuals, including those previously detained in immigration facilities, are referred to ASST by Immigration New Zealand.

However, the government agency does not provide funding for their care, leaving the charity with limited resources to support the growing number of clients.

In May alone, ASST had 92 new clients who received nothing unless it was through the charity.

The wait time for asylum seekers to become refugees in Aotearoa is prolonged, averaging around 500 days.

Shockingly, some individuals have had to wait for five or six years for legal refugee recognition.

ASST provides accommodation at its Auckland hostel, food boxes and a weekly stipend of $40 to asylum seekers who are ineligible for social housing and lack a stable income.

Social workers are employed to assist clients with the visa process.

While Immigration New Zealand claims that asylum seekers can apply for work visas and receive a living allowance, the reality is different.

Out of the 16 asylum seekers residing at the Auckland hostel, nine are without visas and do not receive immigration allowances.

This dire situation has left many asylum seekers traumatised, confined to the hostel with no sense of purpose.

ASST's general manager described it as a broken system that fails to support those in need adequately.

A recent University of Auckland study highlighted the inequality of services available to different refugee subgroups and emphasised the importance of supporting asylum seekers during the legal review process.

Immigration New Zealand acknowledges that there is no formal referral process to ASST and states that they are not currently funded to provide financial support to the charity.

However, the government is exploring options to improve assistance for asylum seekers and convention refugees.

As asylum seekers continue to face prolonged waiting periods, insufficient financial resources and uncertain living conditions, the immediate need for assistance remains pressing.

Source

• Stuff

Straddling the U.S-Mexico border, the Diocese of Brownsville is the southernmost diocese in Texas. It has long been at the epicentre of the church's response to migration, especially as the crisis has ballooned in recent years.

"Thank you for your communication, with which you express your closeness to me and the work being done in the Diocese of Brownsville, especially in favour of those who, for various circumstances, are far from their homeland," Francis said in the letter. Continue reading

Since the end of February 2022, they have welcomed hundreds of needy families.

"During the first few weeks of the war, there was a lot of movement in our monastery. People came from many different cities in Ukraine, such as Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Boryspil, Irpin, Zhytomyr, Chernobyl, Odessa, Horlivka, Slovyansk, Donetsk and Luhansk.

It was mostly women and children, accompanied by their husbands who would help their families cross the border before returning to fight for their country", explains Sister Klara.

The nuns estimate that to date, more than 500 people have been through their monastery.

"Currently, the monastery mostly hosts those who do not plan to go abroad, and some of them don't have a home to return to either. Now we have 75 people here, including the sisters from our community in Zhytomyr", says Sister Klara.

The Benedictines of Zhytomyr were finally forced to evacuate their convent after spending several days in air raid shelters in the basement of the local cathedral, as their building was under constant threat of bombardment.

To help people overcome these difficult and traumatic times, the nuns involve everyone in the daily chores and services, such as cleaning the monastery or working in the kitchen and the dining hall.

One of the cells has been turned into a playroom for the 20 children who are staying there.

Roman, Anna and child

Roman, Anna and their two children, a month-old baby and a seven-year-old boy, are one of the families currently living in Solonka.

They are originally from Kharkiv and held on for 10 days or so after the war started, but when the situation worsened, they decided to leave.

They had already packed their bags and were in the hallway when a rocket hit their building.

"The house caught fire; all the windows were blown out", Roman tells ACN.

They thought they would not be able to leave because the house was filled with thick black smoke.

The neighbour's house had also been hit, causing even more damage.

Out in the street, people were running in all directions to get as far from the house as possible, fearing the gas pipes might explode. Roman and Anna took their children and their bags and started walking.

Eventually, they waved down a car that drove them to the house of a friend's mother. "But there were bombings there as well, especially at night. It was awful. We couldn't sleep, and the kids were getting nervous", Roman explains.

They decided to head to Lviv on the train with other refugees.

When they arrived, they realised that what they had read online was true, the city was overcrowded, and there were no rooms available.

Anna found a place to stay on the floor of a home for mothers and their children, but that was not what she wanted, especially as her baby was still so small.

With growing frustration, they were going from one place to the next, but nobody was able to help.

Finally, they sat on a bench, completely worn out.

The baby was cold, and they didn't know what to dress it in.

That was when a nun came up to them and asked: "Do you have a place to stay? Is anybody expecting you?"

They replied in the negative, adding that they were desperate.

The nun suggested they go to the monastery, where they were given a clean room, food, clothes and powdered milk for the baby.

Anna was beside herself with joy. "We will remember this moment and be grateful for the rest of our lives."

Later they learned that Sister Hieronima, the nun who offered them help, had not planned to go by the train station that day but felt that she should see if anybody needed help.

Anna has no doubt: "It was divine providence. A sign from God!" and Roman agrees: "The Lord saved us!"

The sisters have left their cloister and the silence to which they are usually committed, but they believe that this is what God is asking of them at this time.

"This is how our community of nuns and monks reads the signs of the times, and this is how we envision our service now".

This ministry of selfless hospitality is bringing many people closer to God.

"Most of the refugees are not believers, but sometimes they come to pray", explains Sister Klara.

"During the feast of the Annunciation, we celebrated the wedding of an elderly couple from Zhytomyr in our church. Another young couple from Kharkiv is preparing for the sacraments of reconciliation and marriage and will also baptise their son. Several people have made their first confession".

She ends by saying that despite all this new work and dedication, prayer time continues to be the mainstay of their lives.

"We have kept up our rhythm of common prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours, and we have additional hours of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Glory to the Lord in all things!"

• María Lozano writes for Aid to the Church in Need.
• Republished with permission.

Honcharuk describes life in his diocese at the moment.

Could you describe the situation in your diocese, which has become the main theatre of this terrible war?

Our Church is alive and active!

Priests and faithful are in their places, and prayer continues to flow, as does the daily liturgy in parishes.

More in some than in others, depending on the location: where war activities are going on, or territories are occupied, there is no such possibility. Yet our Church serves the people, the elderly, and children, as well as helping our soldiers who defend our homeland.

How do you feel in this fifth month of the war?

The first shock is over; now there is permanent tension.

We're constantly in anticipation, especially when there's shelling and it's unclear when and where it will hit.

The day before yesterday, it was some 1,000-1,200 meters from us, in a straight line.

Last night, the bombs hit somewhere very close to us.

I know that I will not hear the missile that strikes me. So, when I hear an explosion, it means I'm still alive.

We are prepared for sudden and unexpected death.

That means we often go to sacraments, especially confession.

It is a completely new experience, a different way of life. I get up in the morning and realise that I am alive.

In addition to that pain, suffering adds a sense of helplessness because it overwhelms you.

Evil is so great and so cynical that it topples the great of this world from their thrones.

Wars are very easy to trigger, but how to stop them?

On the other hand, there are also great signs of God's presence amid the whirlwind of war, in the hearts of people who are serving in various places as soldiers, medics, firefighters, policemen, as well as in other services.

By looking into the faces of these people, we can witness the great, divine power of love with which God inspires them.

What is the situation in Kharkiv now? Are people coming back, or have they now begun to leave again?

The situation is constantly changing.

For example, one man might come to see his apartment but immediately leave again.

In general, people are leaving because of the constant shelling in Kharkiv.

There is shelling before lunch, after lunch, and at night.

We are very close to the front line, literally twenty kilometres.

Before the war, the city of Kharkiv had a population of 1.7 million. At the moment, there are about 700,000, less than half.

But other cities in the diocese, such as Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, or Bakhmut, are very dangerous places in the actual warzone.

Practically everyone has already escaped; there are few people left in those cities.

What is everyday life like in a city under constant fire?

The situation of each family or each person is different.

If a person's house is undamaged, they have a place to live, and if they have a job, they have funds.

If the house is destroyed, the person has nowhere to live. And if they don't have a job, if their workplace has been destroyed, the person is left without funds.

And when on top of that they have been injured…

Sometimes people have only what they were wearing because everything burned down with the house.

Therefore, some people need clothes, some need shoes, medicine, or food, some just need support, and some a place to stay.

Others need someone to take their family to safety.

There are many problems and tasks ahead.

Do people have access to the things they need? Is there work?

The destruction of the city is calculated at about 15%.

This is irreparable damage.

But the city's infrastructure is working; it can withstand the strain.

Those plants and companies that can continue to work, people in them still have jobs, and some others have been completely moved to other Ukrainian cities.

Hospitals, and municipal services, which are responsible for electricity, gas, water, sewage, garbage collection, street cleaning and public transport, are still working.

It all works.

If they destroy something, in twenty-four hours, you wouldn't even know anything happened; the municipal services clean everything up and take it away.

The fire department, police, and other services are fully working too.

People try to live normally even though the war is so present in our city. Schools and universities work online.

And what about the financial situation?

Only some banks have their branches open.

Also, only certain ATMs work. For the most part, these physical locations remain closed for security reasons. But the entire financial sector is working; bank cards are working everywhere. Shops are partially open.

I was in the market yesterday - only half of it burned down.

Where stalls and kiosks survived, they are still selling there.

Cathedral of Kharkiv used as warehouse due the war.

But people can't buy anything because they don't have money. People here are not wealthy.

The wealthy left long ago, but those who live from paycheck to paycheck remain, they count every penny, and now they are in a very difficult situation.

Even from the clothes, one can see that such a person has always led a dignified life, but the war has made them poor, or homeless.

Many people have also been affected psychologically, and some began abusing alcohol.

In some cities, far from the front, people are already ignoring the air-raid alert. How about in Kharkiv, are people taking cover, or ignoring the alerts and just going about their lives?

At the beginning of the war, people reacted more when there was shelling, they generally did not come out of their basements and shelters.

Many did not come out at all, they lived there constantly, and some are still very panicked to this day.

There are streets where people hardly felt that the war is going on because it was completely quiet. And there are also neighbourhoods where everything is destroyed.

I see that most people have become braver; the tired psyche begins to suppress the sense of danger.

What is the security situation like?

People stand around and keep talking when the shelling is far away, and when the shells are heard closer, they scatter.

But when nothing happens for two or three minutes, people come out again.

The day before yesterday, a father was driving a car with his son. They had come to the city to file papers for university and were returning home.

Suddenly a shell directly hit the car. Some debris was left from the car, but their bodies were torn to pieces.

As you see, people continue to drive during the shelling, and some will make it through, and some will not.

But let's not think that people are irresponsible.

The danger lasts so long that somehow you have to learn to ignore it, but you also have to think and make decisions.

Previously, people just didn't control it: they would run away, and then they would start to think. But it is very exhausting when you have to run away ten times in a day.

People fleeing but also seeking refuge in the diocese

Some people from Kharkiv, or other frontline cities, moved to the nearest villages - to their relatives or to empty houses there. But when they saw that it didn't end, some began to go further.

Inside the country, too, you need to find a place to live and work, and there are many difficulties involved. On the other hand, going abroad means that only the wife and children can leave, and the husbands have to stay in Ukrainian territory, because of martial law.

This is a huge blow to the family, and to the spouses; it causes great suffering.

People are constantly on the move.

Some settle somewhere and get a job, and some fail.

Sometimes it seems as if people are finally settled in a new place, and suddenly they are told: "sorry, we have to ask you to leave our house".

The fate of each move is different but always difficult.

Some come back because they say it is easier for them to live under fire, in danger, than to live as refugees.

In this situation, who are you? You have no rights, you can't plan anything, you have nothing of your own.

You always feel that you are hovering over someone's head and that others are watching you too.

It is very difficult psychologically.

If someone wants to try, let them leave their home for a month, inviting themselves to another's house, then another, then a third, then a fourth, always as a guest, and moving all the time.

Working with refugees and internally displaced people?

Here in Kharkiv, we have the Marian Fathers and Caritas, they are helping displaced people, as many people who have lost their homes have come to the city.

Here, not far from the border, twenty houses in one village were wrecked yesterday.

Russian troops are simply destroying our Ukrainian villages, and then the survivors flee to the city because it is no longer possible to live there.

Displaced people from nearby villages are also coming to Kharkiv, although Kharkiv is still under shelling every day.

We also work in other places, we help by distributing humanitarian aid, things for children, food, diapers, or just being available to talk. There are such cases in Poltava, Sumy, Konotop, Dnipro, as well as in Zaporizhzhia and Pokrovsk.

• Fr Jurij Blazejewski for Aid to the Church in Need.
• Aid to the Church in Need is supporting the Catholic Church in Ukraine in its commitment to stay on the ground and keep serving its flock in the face of material and economic war.

The war in Ukraine has greatly contributed to this record high number of displaced persons - with 8 million forced to move out of immediate harm's way while remaining within Ukraine, and an additional 6 million needing to move to one of the surrounding countries, according to the U.N.

But the hostilities in Ukraine are far from the only armed conflicts around the world that are forcibly displacing countless people - in many cases, to run for their lives. Yemen, Tigray/Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Syria, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger, Haiti, and Central America's Northern Triangle (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador) are among the world's most violent and poorest countries, which in turn is causing the displacement of masses of fellow human beings.

While extreme poverty, climate change and COVID-19 are major realities forcing 100 million children, women, and men to flee from their homes, they are trumped by armed conflicts and war.

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of people forced to flee their homes has been increasing every year over the past decade, and now stands at the highest level since records began, a trend that can be only reversed by a new, concerted push towards peacemaking.

Last year was notable for the number of conflicts that escalated and new ones that flared; 23 countries, with a combined population of 850 million, faced medium or high-intensity conflicts, according to the World Bank.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned, "Either the international community comes together to take action to address this human tragedy, resolve conflicts and find lasting solutions, or this terrible trend will continue." Grandi further appealed, "To reverse this trend, the only answer is peace and stability so that innocent people are not forced to gamble between acute danger at home or precarious flight and exile."

While several poor and struggling nations continue to welcome many refugees generously, the U.S., and most other more economically developed nations, allow only small numbers of fleeing brothers and sisters to find refuge within their borders.

This clearly flies in the face of Jesus' insistence that we welcome the stranger (Matthew 25:31-46).

Pope Francis, in his 2022 message for the "World Day of Migrants and Refugees," teaches that in order for the wondrous harmony of God's Kingdom to reign, "We must accept Christ's salvation, his Gospel of love, so that the many forms of inequality and discrimination in the present world may be eliminated."

Francis continues, "No one must be excluded. God's plan is inclusive and gives priority to those living on the existential peripheries. Among them are many migrants and refugees, displaced persons, and victims of trafficking. The Kingdom of God is to be built with them, for without them it would not be the Kingdom that God wants. The inclusion of those most vulnerable is the necessary condition for full citizenship in God's Kingdom."

Furthermore, the Holy Father wisely reminds us that "Building the future with migrants and refugees also means recognizing and valuing how much each of them can contribute to the process of construction"

Here Pope Francis further elaborates that the work of migrants and refugees, "their youth, their enthusiasm and their willingness to sacrifice enrich the communities that receive them. … Enormous potential exists, ready to be harnessed if only given a chance."

Let's give them that chance.

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

During his two-day visit to Malta, the pontiff visited the Peace Lab in Ħal Far where he met with migrants and warned authorities against becoming complicit in the violation of human rights.

Pope Francis heard the accounts of two men who recounted the arduous journeys they suffered to reach Malta. He was also presented with a life jacket, a symbol of the risks that migrants take when they make the journey to Europe.

Pope Francis told migrants St Paul and fellow castaways had been treated with "unusual kindness" in Malta.

However, the pope's message was not universally welcomed, with several people taking issue with his appeal for solidarity and taking to Facebook to vent their displeasure.

Overwhelmingly, the sentiment among users was that if the pope was concerned with the wellbeing of migrants, then he should "take them back with him to the Vatican". Continue reading

New Zealand's history of helping out people amid violent conflicts include Polish refugees in the 1940s, Vietnamese and Cambodian people in the 1970s and 1980s, and people from Somalia in the 1990s and 2000s.

David Cooper of immigration firm Malcolm Pacific has spent 40 years helping countless numbers of people come here to restart their lives, many from war-torn countries.

"There were the Vietnamese in the 1980s, the Somalis in the 1990s and the 2000s. They all have one thing in common, and that is hope. Hope of a new future, hope that they and their loved ones will be safe, hope that they can go on and have a better life than the one they are leaving behind.''

This week the Government announced it would offer visas to the parents and wider family of New Zealand Ukrainians, in an effort to help as many as 4000 people to escape the war raging in their homeland.

"They're running from a war-torn country. They're coming with a bag of their belongings. Their apartment has been destroyed and in many cases they have had to leave family members behind, not knowing if they are safe. It's incredibly frightening because the life they once knew doesn't exist anymore and the future is unknown.'"

But the Ukrainians would face some different challenges to the migrants who came here before them, and the Government needed to think about what additional support they would need, he said.

"They'll be going to live with their families straight away instead of going to the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre. Refugees who spend time there get health checks and learn about New Zealand before they become part of our communities. Many refugees and survivors of war suffer from issues such as PTSD, so we need to look at what the Government can do for them with the services that are already in place.

Their arrival could also place additional stress on their Ukrainian New Zealand families.

"There are a number of things Kiwis can do to help to take the stress off those families, and it can be as simple as cooking some meals, lending them a car, and including them as part of their communities. New Zealanders do a very good job of supporting refugees.''

However, Cooper was critical of the Government's decision to only allow the Ukrainians, who were not considered to be refugees, a two-year-working visa, and no student visas. That would mean a 19-year-old coming here would have no pathway to university or study unless they become a fee-paying international student, he said.

"The other thing that is a problem is that the working visa doesn't give them a pathway to residence, which means they can only stay here two years, so in two years' time that gives them something else to be anxious about.

"We have no idea whether the war will be over then, or whether these people will have anything to go back to, if they want to.'' Continue reading

The UN refugee agency says by March 14, almost 1.8 million people had entered Poland from Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24.

The Council of Major Superiors of Congregations of Women Religious (the Major Superiors) in Poland says as at March 14, sisters in 924 Polish Catholic convents and 98 in Ukraine were offering "spiritual, psychological, medical, and material help."

All of the nearly 150 religious congregations operating in Poland and Ukraine have responded.

Some are helping a few people, while others have offered assistance to as many as 18,000.

The sisters' work includes almost everything - from transporting people from areas affected by war to providing mother and baby classes.

One of their bigger tasks involves organising housing for the refugees.

To date, the Major Superiors say 498 convents in Poland and 76 in Ukraine have organised housing. About 3,060 children, 2,420 families and 2,950 adults have received shelter so far. In addition, 64 Catholic institutions offer 600 places for orphans.

Besides these, there are 420 institutions with places for around 3,000 mothers with children.

Elderly and disabled people are also among those who have found shelter in institutions run by sisters.

The Major Superiors say the religious sisters have also been helping prepare and distribute hot meals, food, sanitary products, clothing and blankets.

They have also been helping the newcomers find work in Poland, creating additional jobs in their centres, coordinating assistance to refugees at aid headquarters, helping Ukrainian children enrol in Polish schools and serving as Ukrainian language translators.

Other assistance religious communities are providing includes constantly collecting food and hygiene products to be sent to Ukraine, given directly to refugees in Poland or to houses run by congregations.

The congregations also make financial donations and transmit funds through their foundations.

Poland, a country of 38 million people that borders both Russia and Ukraine, was already home to an estimated two million Ukrainian workers before the war began.

Source

• CNA
• Image: Vatican News

Among those providing support is the Catholic charity Caritas Australia, who is working directly with Caritas Ukraine and its local partner Caritas Spes.

Funds to support the charity's work in Ukraine have started to arrive.

So far the Australian Government has provided an initial $35 million commitment - support Caritas is welcoming with gratitude.

"This humanitarian aid is desperately needed in Ukraine right now," said Kirsty Robertson, Caritas Australia's CEO.

"Over half a million people have already been forced to flee their homes."

Robertson says refugee numbers could "balloon into three or even five million in the coming weeks as more villages, towns and cities are victims of air raids and attacks."

Caritas Spes and Caritas Australia, together, offer support to Ukrainian families who have fled their homes, providing emergency supplies including food, hygiene kits, clean water and psychological help. Emergency shelter is provided to displaced families.

Among those helping relieve suffering is the executive director of Caritas-Spes, Catholic priest Father Vyacheslav Grynevych.

He is coordinating humanitarian efforts from a basement bomb shelter, where he has taken in 36 people, mostly children and their pets.

Despite the conditions in Ukraine, Grynevych says Caritas-Spes is continuing to prepare projects and coordinate activities.

In an online press conference via Zoom last Tuesday, Grynevych said:

"As a priest, I have my reflection about the situation … because, you know, war makes both adults and children cry … We learned it when hiding in basements during the airstrikes.

"Aside from material losses that can be revealed over time, the pain and fear that people will experience will take very long to recover."

Grynevych says Caritas-Spes is also supporting people who have gathered at Ukraine's western border, providing temporary housing in shelters.

The charity has the capacity to help shelter 400 children and as of last Tuesday had already accepted half that number.

"We are equipped with shelters in five cities, one of which is in a children's hospital for pregnant women, women who just delivered, and children," he said during the Zoom meeting.

"This humanitarian need will likely increase over the coming weeks and months," Caritas Australia's Robertson says.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Caritas Australia (supplied)
• Image: Catholic News Agency

The pontiff called on Europeans to stop ignoring their suffering, insisting that Jesus "is present in the stranger, in the refugee, in those who are naked and hungry."

"I ask every man and woman, all of us, to overcome the paralysis of fear, the indifference that kills, the cynical disregard that nonchalantly condemns to death those on the fringes," he said.

Francis is clearly leaning on the faith of his listeners to motivate his audience to see refugees as neighbours and to work toward what he has called "the miracle of an ever wider ‘we.'" But how common is it for faith to drive compassion toward refugees? Does religiosity make people more welcoming — or more suspicious — of the stranger?

Sociologists of religion have been wrestling with this question for years. Some researchers have suggested that religion promotes altruistic norms that encourage people to help strangers, pointing to faith-based organizations that play crucial roles in partnering with or even pushing governments to welcome refugees.

Other researchers have argued that increased religiosity is actually linked to stronger prejudices against migrants, particularly when a majority religious group feels their position is being threatened by newcomers.

The efficacy of Francis' message depends largely on his listeners' religious contexts and personal religious practices, according to Kenneth Vaughan, a sociologist at the University of Connecticut who has studied the links between religion and anti-immigrant sentiment.

In a study published in the fall journal issue of the Sociology of Religion, Vaughan examined how religiosity influenced Europeans' attitudes toward refugees.

After sifting through 2016 data from the European Social Survey (ESS), a large-scale, cross-national study, Vaughan found that most people, including the religiously unaffiliated, were more supportive than restrictive when asked about admitting refugees into their countries. But some characteristics were more likely to foster welcoming attitudes than others.

Attendance at religious services is one factor, Vaughan said. Christians and Muslims who attended services frequently tended to favour more generous policies toward refugees than their co-religionists who attended less frequently. This trend was particularly noticeable among Catholics.

But even this is complicated. Overall, Vaughan found, Catholics prefer significantly more restrictive policies than the unaffiliated. It was only Catholics who attended church frequently who had more generous policy preferences than the unaffiliated.

Vaughan suggested that European Catholics — the largest religious grouping in several of the countries surveyed — may "have the most to lose" from demographic change.

Unless these Catholics are "imbued with religious messages from communities they identify with," Vaughan wrote in the report — i.e. occupy the pews regularly — "European Catholics may be more likely to think of themselves in terms of demographics as opposed to religiously-oriented goals."

Vaughan also found that religious minorities were more open to receiving refugees in their countries than other religious groups and the unaffiliated. Since Muslims comprise a large share of Europe's most recent refugees, they could be more prone to empathize with fellow newcomers, Vaughan said.

Europeans were more likely to support generous refugee policies in regions where a higher proportion of the population is Protestant or Catholic. This appeared to be true regardless of what their own religion is or whether they identified with a religious tradition at all.

As a sociologist and a Christian, Vaughan told Religion News Service that the results he uncovered were "encouraging and humbling."

"It tells me that our religious traditions do provide us with something worth celebrating and something that offers practical help to the needy coming to our shores. On the other hand, it also tells us that there are myriad avenues for our less and non-religious peers to be a part of this, too," he said. "And the risks of falling into dangerous patterns of nativism are equally real for religious populations and secular populations alike."

Vaughan cautioned that, while the data provided a snapshot of Europeans' attitudes in 2016, national and regional conversations and ideas about refugees and other topics can change rapidly.

"While I see very clear and strong effects coming from religiosity here, I would not want to lean into universalizing statements about one group being more amenable to refugees than others," he said.

Other researchers have proposed different ways of measuring religiosity's effects on attitudes toward migrants.

Verena Benoit, a lecturer at Germany's Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, suggested that religiosity should be evaluated alongside other factors, such as people's attachment to values like altruism and benevolence on the one hand, or tradition, power and security on the other. She also wants to know whether respondents express feeling threatened by immigrants, realistically or symbolically.

In an analysis of ESS data published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion in May, Benoit found that respondents' concerns about the threat that immigrants posed had a much stronger direct effect on their attitudes, followed by their values. Religiosity actually had the weakest direct effect. (Benoit explicitly focused her study on immigrants, not refugees.)

Benoit, who leaned on self-reported levels of religiosity for her study, said that these patterns held firm even when she re-evaluated the data using respondents' frequency of service attendance and frequency of prayer.

Vaughan said that in nations with high levels of Catholic religiosity, where national and regional leaders are actively communicating Francis' message to Catholic laity, the pope's trip to Lesbos could re-energize activism around refugees. But this is not guaranteed, he said, pointing to Poland, a country with a significant Catholic population where anti-migrant rhetoric is becoming increasingly popular.

"Pope Francis inspiring compassion toward migrants among the Polish Catholic laity constitutes a major political risk for certain politicians," he said. "I would not expect Francis' messages to be unmatched there."

The pope's visit comes as European countries overall are adopting tougher stances on migration from Muslim-majority countries in response to a new wave of refugees fleeing Afghanistan after the Taliban seized control of the country this summer. In the past, Muslim immigrants' presence in Europe has caused consternation among some Christians — in a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2017, about 27% of European Catholics and 20% of European Protestants said they felt like strangers in their own countries due to the number of Muslims present there.

After his first trip to Lesbos in 2016, Francis brought three families of Syrian refugees back with him to Rome — all of whom were Muslims. To mark his recent visit, Francis plans to have 12 asylum seekers from Cyprus relocated to Italy, according to the Associated Press.

Of course, studying data on religiosity can only reveal part of the picture. On an individual level, the faith-driven impulse to care for migrants has the potential to radically alter a person's life. This is what happened to Ewa Pliszczak, a Polish-born Catholic sister who had worked as a youth counsellor in the United Kingdom since 2002.

After several encounters with refugee families she had met through her religious congregation, The Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit, Pliszczak felt called to do more. So she packed her bags and moved 2,000 miles to Greece to volunteer with Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).

Whether she's interacting with refugee children in Athens' Victoria Square or chatting with parents who stop by JRS' donation center to pick up clothing, shoes, diapers and toys, Pliszczak said she is constantly thinking of the story of the Good Samaritan — a parable Jesus told about a man who goes out of his way to care for a stranger in need.

"This passage is echoing in my heart daily, ‘Who is my neighbour today?'" she said.

• Carol Kuruvilla is an author at Religion News Service.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• Image: New Yorker

But instead, it clearly appears that more often than not, Catholics - much like the general public - make important decisions on who to vote for, and where to come down on crucial issues, based primarily on the political party they affiliate with and from their cultural, economic and political leanings as being either conservative or liberal.

Putting faith on the back burner is not Christocentric, and is not Catholic.

And so when it comes to the life and death issues facing billions of suffering brothers and sisters - born and unborn, in one's nation, as well as in all other countries - Catholics for the most part, don't look, sound or act much different than the larger secular population. And that's not good.

But in the Gospel, Jesus puts forth to his followers this challenging directive: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house."

In a world that is so often darkened by what Pope Francis calls the "culture of indifference," we, the modern-day followers of Jesus, like his ancient followers, are called to radiate the Master's light of love upon the various sufferings of countless brothers and sisters.

But we are taking this mandate too lightly - in a fractured and partial way.

In general, I have long found that very often Catholics with conservative leanings, more or less oppose abortion, infanticide, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, promiscuous public school sex education and government attacks on religious liberty and traditional marriage.

And in general, I have long found that very often Catholics with liberal leanings, more or less support nonviolent peace initiatives, demilitarization, drastically cutting military budgets and redirecting those funds to end global hunger and poverty, protecting the environment while working to end human-induced climate change, abolishing capital punishment, welcoming migrants and refugees, opposing racism, and fighting to stop human trafficking.

Each of these efforts is morally commendable - to a point.

But the problem is that when it comes to conservative Catholic social action initiatives and liberal Catholic social action initiatives, it most often boils down to "never the twain shall meet."

And this is disastrous - disastrous for our Catholic faith and for all who will continue to suffer because we prefer biased, ideological, narrow-minded tunnel vision to open-minded, heartfelt Catholic dialogue that places the Gospel and Catholic social teaching as our foundation.

Catholic conservatives and Catholic liberals desperately need to pray and take concrete steps in forging a unity designed to work together to develop holistic nonviolent strategies aimed at protecting the life and dignity of every single human being from conception to natural death - with a preferential option for the poorest and most vulnerable, including our common earth-home.

Instead of ranking the life issues, we need to link them, always bearing in mind that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Thus, all the life-links need to be strong!

Imagine what a moral, political, economic, cultural and religious beacon of light the Catholic Church would be if conservative Catholics and liberal Catholics would come together, in a determined way to learn from each other, to pray together and to work together with Christocentric passion building Pope Francis' "culture of encounter" where all life is respected, protected and nurtured!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

On 2 September, the social agency launched an appeal for housing, furniture and household packs.

"Every action, small or large, will greatly benefit the individuals and families fleeing a desperate situation and seeking safety in New Zealand," Prendergast said.

"Whether through parish newsletters, community or Facebook groups, CSS has received and continues to receive amazingly generous offers from people wanting to help," he said.

Prendergast told CathNews the archdiocese's assistance can be seen as a humanitarian response.

"People are responding to people in need," and it is 'all systems go', as the region prepares to welcome these refugees.

Despite the early success, CSS remains keen to find rental housing for the Wellington-bound families over the next few weeks.

"Stable housing is crucially important to help these people to adjust and settle well into their lives ahead", the agency said.

CSS is targeting one-to four-bedroom houses, flats or units that can be rented for at least six months - ideally longer."

"The number of people who may come to Wellington is yet to be confirmed but a call for housing was made in anticipation of a housing need," Prendergast says.

"We are also seeking basic furniture and household packs for the families, including bed linen, towels, kitchen utensils, and pantry items such as rice, cooking oils, canned black/kidney beans, tea and coffee etc.

"Together we can help these people to settle well in the Wellington region.'

Several organisations are arranging help for people to settle in, Prendergast notes.

"Wellington Red Cross will be providing Red Cross volunteers dedicated to all individuals and families who arrive to support them on a daily basis."

In addition, Prendergast says the Afghan community is "very much involved" in helping welcome their compatriots from Afghanistan as are several local communities and government organisations in Wellington.

Between them, Prendergast says they're co-ordinating responses and support.

"As clarity is gained on numbers coming and when, the co-ordination of housing and setting up those houses will be ready to start."

Source

• Scoop
• Supplied
• Image: Stuff

But even with the best prognosis, age is catching up to Francis.

Barring a miracle, he will only be expected to continue as pope for five or six years. We may look back at his hospitalisation as the moment that marked the beginning of the end of his papacy.

If that's the case, we will also be able to count incredible achievements.

As a pastor, Francis has caught the imagination of the world with his compassion and openness to all people. He has put love, especially love for the poor, centre stage in his peaching of the gospel.

As a world leader, he has put his papacy squarely on the side of migrants and refugees. And he has been a prophetic voice against global warming and the excesses of capitalism.

And within the church, he has encouraged dialogue and a more consultative style of governance: Put bluntly, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith no longer acts like the Inquisition it once was.

In short, Francis has rebranded the papacy for the 21st century with a pastoral, prophetic and inclusive voice.

Where he has been less successful is in winning over the clerical establishment to his vision for the church. In his eight years as pope, Francis has hardly dented the clerical establishment that he inherited.

Many bishops and priests in the Roman Curia and around the world think his election was a mistake and they are hoping for a return to what they regard as normalcy in the next papacy.

They feel he has not emphasized dogma and rules enough, so they are not cooperating.

Yet Francis has treated these opponents with the gentleness of a pastor who hopes for their conversion.

Any other CEO would simply replace those who are not on board with his agenda, but Francis refuses to fire people.

As a result, he has waited until curial officials and bishops reached retirement age. For such a strategy to have an effect requires a very long papacy, such as the 27-year reign of John Paul II, followed by eight years of Benedict.

During this 35-year period, John Paul and Benedict remade the episcopacy in their image.

The litmus test was loyalty and orthodoxy as they defined it.

Anyone who questioned the papacy's position on birth control, married priests or women priests was disqualified.

These bishops then revamped the seminaries that have produced the clergy we have today.

One of the best examples is the United States, where neither the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops nor the seminaries are bastions of Francis supporters.

Bishops who embody Francis' values make up only 20 to 40 of the 223 active U.S. bishops.

And among the clergy, Francis receives his greatest support from older priests, who are dying off, rather than younger ones who are the future of the church.

Instead of taking to heart the axiom that "personnel is policy," he left in place a Benedict appointee, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, the office that vets candidates for the episcopacy.

The nuncios, who suggest episcopal candidates, were also trained and advanced under John Paul and Benedict, and for the first three years of Francis' papacy, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, an archenemy, served in that role in the United States.

As a result, even the American bishops appointed under Francis are a mixed bag.

Finding young candidates for the priesthood, meanwhile, who support Francis and want to be celibate is like looking for Catholic unicorns, and if you were to find some, they aren't likely to be welcomed by conservative seminaries.

As a result, the laity who are encouraged to come to church because they like Francis are unlikely to find him in their parishes or dioceses.

Reforming the Catholic Church takes decades, not years.

If his papacy is reckoned a failure, it will be because Francis failed to replace or outlast the clerical establishment put in place by John Paul and Benedict.

His papacy will only succeed if he is followed by popes who are in sync with his approach to Catholicism, and this is not guaranteed.

He has appointed sympathetic men to the College of Cardinals, but conclaves are unpredictable as his own election showed.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

This year, as we observe World Refugee Day, America Magazine is testing reader's knowledge of papal refugee statements. Read more

The global "Share the Journey" campaign aims to build "bridges of hope between islands separated by fear," says Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, president of Caritas Internationalis.

Although the campaign has formally ended, its message continues. Communities are encouraged to change attitudes toward immigration by getting them to know their migrant neighbours.

"We gave ourselves a few challenges: not just seeing the migrants but looking at them with compassion; not just hearing their voice but listening to their stories and concerns; not just passing by the other side but stopping, as the good Samaritan, and living a moment of communion with them," Tagle says.

Anyone can get involved.

They can go on a sponsored or symbolic solidarity walk with refugees, invite migrants to shared meals, or light a virtual candle.

Some people may want to share messages or stories, which will be gathered into a compilation for Pope Francis.

Asked about ways to measure the success of the four-year "Share the Journey" campaign, both Aloysius John, secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis and Tagle spoke of individual encounters where people were "converted" to recognizing the migrant in their midst as a brother or sister.

"People have been touched in different ways, touched by the suffering," says John.

The ongoing campaign hopes to develop "a new consciousness, a new way of looking at people on the move and developing this culture where, instead of fear of the 'other,' we see a human person and we give them the love, the attention, that we know every human being deserves," Tagle says.

"We cannot set a time frame; we cannot say, 'At the end of 2021 everyone, including Caritas workers, should have been converted already.' We hope that happens, but knowing human freedom and human frailty," some people will need more time."

With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing and with many nations claiming a need to protect their own citizens first, we face "the risk of intensifying selfishness and the fear of strangers," Tagle says.

The call is for everyone to show solidarity and " continue to share the journey with migrants, especially at this most difficult moment."

"The mission continues," Tagle says.

"Where there is indifference and intolerance toward migrants, Caritas will stand by them to express the love and concern of the Mother Church," John says.

His comment is echoed by Msgr Bruno-Marie Duffé, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

He notes the campaign's key elements reflect Catholic teaching on migrants, beginning with the fact that they are human beings with dignity and rights to be protected.

Everyone has a journey, an intimate pain that haunts them and each of them has a hope: to be considered as a person, to be called by name, to be welcomed and recognized, he says.

Source

• Detroit Catholic
• Image: Caritas Internationalis