Cathal BarryCatholics have a responsibility to offer “sanctuary and welcome” to asylum seekers fleeing war-torn parts of the world, the United Nation’s special envoy on migration has said.
Speaking at this year’s novena at Knock, Peter Sutherland insisted there is “no room for ambiguity, let alone opposition amongst Christians, to the phenomenon of migration”.
“Apart from our obligations under international law to grant asylum to the persecuted our responsibilities as members of the human family and the Catholic Church oblige us to offer sanctuary and welcome to those in need,” he said.
The former Attorney General also warned that “beyond refugees and our obligations to them, the desperate plight of many economic migrants seeking a better life (at grave risk to their own) should drive us to seek to open up new avenues for legal migration for them too”.
He noted, however, that instead of this, in some places, “we hear a constant refrain in calls for more border controls and for the alleged need for the erection of fences and walls”.
Mr Sutherland was unequivocal that the mass movement of people “has created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in recent times in Europe and indeed elsewhere”.
“So we must not, in these times, reject in particular those who are escaping from persecution, war or climatic disasters,” he warned.
The UN representative criticised the overall response in Europe to the present migrant crisis.
Commending a number of countries including Germany, Sweden and Ireland for their response, Mr Sutherland pointed out that those saved from waters in the Mediterranean by various navies are brought to Italy.
“What has happened next has been less than satisfactory,” he said.
“Italy and Greece have received most migrants but the offers from other EU states to relocate refugees from either of these countries have been less than satisfactory. So it must be conceded that far from every EU state has been prepared to offer those entitled to asylum the opportunity to avail of it.
“The seeming lack of solidarity demonstrated by some other member states to relocate those who are in camps in Greece and Italy is less than one might have hoped for,” he said.