Pope Francis will visit Mori…Speaking about his five-hour visit to the Greek island, Francis said he was particularly saddened by the trauma that the refugees’ voyages have had on the children he met Saturday.
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According to the Vatican communique, all of the people the Pope took with him “were already in camps in Lesbos before the agreement between the European Union and Turkey”.
Francis, leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, shook hands with hundreds of people as hundreds more were penned behind metal barriers at the Moria camp, which holds some 3,000 people.
But it is not just through his worlds that the Pope has been humanizing and supporting Syrian refugees. Then to demonstrate his message, he took 12 of them to the Vatican with him aboard the papal plane.
Sanders, who had attended a conference at the Vatican on Friday, said he also thanked the pope for his encyclical previous year calling for action on climate change. Of the 173,761 people that have crossed the Mediterranean this year, 153,106 reached the Greek islands as of April 11, while 19,930 people landed in Italy.
However, the Vatican official in charge of migrants, Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, has said the EU-Turkey plan essentially treats migrants as merchandise that can be traded back and forth and doesn’t recognize their inherent dignity as human beings.
Sant’Egidio, a Christian community which offers help for those in need and is headquartered in Rome, will help the families to settle and to find jobs but the costs will be covered by the Vatican, Francis said.
“If the sun is able to weep, so can we”, Francis said.
Two of the families come from Damascus, the Syrian, while the third is from the stronghold of the fanatical group Daes, also known as ISIS, of Deir el-Zour in the north of the country, near the Iraq border.
Francis, who visited the refugee island to show solidarity with the millions of refugees fleeing terrorism and war that are seeking passage to Europe, told reporters that his visit was “a voyage marked by sadness, a sad voyage”. The couple arrived in Greece with their three children in February via Turkey.
Pope Francis earlier told migrants living in the Moria camp – some of whom are facing being sent back – “you are not alone”.
Francis said he admired the Greek people, saying they had “kept open their hearts and doors”.
Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras greeted Francis as he descended the stairs from a chartered Alitalia jet Saturday morning.
The religious leaders had lunch with eight refugees to hear their stories of fleeing war, conflict and poverty and their hopes for a better life in Europe. Later in the day, the pope, along with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, and Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos II, head of the Church of Greece, will toss floral wreaths into the sea nearby in memory of migrants who have died making the same journey. The refugees were detained and brought to shore Saturday in the port of Mytilene.
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The son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis has made the plight of refugees, the poor and downtrodden the focus of his ministry as pope.
