Asylum Seekers & Refugees and CAtholicism
the BibleThe asylum seeker and the refugee are not constructs of our modern day world. The reality of fleeing persecution is one that dates back to Creation.
The Bible is rich with stories about God’s chosen people, the Israelites, living in exile; being persecuted and marginalised; experiencing oppression; seeking safety in foreign lands; and even being aliens in their Promised Land. From the very beginning, God’s people have been sojourners. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were sent from the Garden of Eden and forced to start again in a new land. One of the most well-known stories in the Bible is the Exodus from Egypt. Through Moses, God led His people out of persecution and slavery and into the Promised Land. Moses himself had lived in the desert as a refugee for 40 years. In Egypt, the Israelites were living as slaves, oppressed and persecuted because of their ethnicity. They became asylum seekers for 40 years, wandering through the desert. When they finally entered the Promised Land as refugees, they faced further trials assimilating because of their ethnicity. God’s concern and heart was always for them, guiding them, providing their needs and promising to fight on their behalf. The Israelites learnt a significant lesson through these experiences, that God cares deeply for the outcast and alien, and that they also should show compassion and kindness towards those who are stateless and refugees. In the New Testament, God’s heart is still with the foreigner and fugitive. As a baby, Jesus became a refugee, fleeing with His parents to Egypt to escape Herod’s death threats. Even as an adult in His ministry, Jesus travels from place to place ‘with no place to rest His head’. He was eventually hunted down and killed because of what He stood for, facing similar experiences to the men and women who are fleeing persecution today. In Matthew 25:35-40 Jesus tells His followers to act with compassion and give practical care to those in desperate need, and equates our actions and concern for others as a measure of our love for Him. As Christians we are called to respond to issues of injustice as Christ would. Without discrimination, in a way that is practical and compassionate. Jesus understood how it felt to be the alien and stranger; to live without the security of a home and be reliant upon the hospitality of strangers. And He left His disciples with an important commandment; to love your neighbour as yourself (Mark 12:30-31). Pope Francis' ResponsePope Francis has on many occasion expressed his appals over the action of those institutions who treat outsiders with dehumanisation and hostility that they do not use to address their own citizens. The Church has openly objected against the 'Globalisation of Indifference' toward the plights of suffering refugees and asylum seeker.
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the Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church teaches that anyone whose life is threatened has the right to protection.
The Catholic Church teaches all people have the right to be part of a community. Asylum seekers who have been forced from their homeland have a duty to integrate into the host community. We must favour this integration by helping migrants to find a place where they may live in peace and safety, where they may work and take on the rights and duties that exist in the country that welcomes them. The exiled Holy Family of Nazareth, fleeing into Egypt, is the archetype of every refugee family. Jesus, Mary and Joseph are for all times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, pilgrim and refugee of whatever kind who, whether compelled by fear of persecution or by want, is forced to leave his native land, his beloved parents and relatives,his close friends, and to seek a foreign soil. For God decreed that His only Son should experience the hardship and grief of exile. The firstborn among many of our brothers and sisters, and precede them in it. For this reason, the Catholic Church seeks to look after and care for refugees and migrants in their trials and welcome the stranger who knocks at our door seeking refuge. Globalisation |
On July 8th 2013, had a visit to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa where many escaping to Europe from the Middle East and Africa end up. There he spoke of how host societies to not impose 'new and even heavier forms of slavery and humiliation". The God ask us: “Where is your brother, the voice of whose blood reaches all the way to me?"
With this in mind, the Pope insisted that each and every person learn to respect the other and receive one another in the compassion of maternal care. He notes that many on their journey to a newer and brighter future many often fall to human trafficking - another grave social justice issue.
“Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters?” the pope asked, saying that too often, the answer is, “No one.”
“We all answer, ‘It’s not me. I have nothing to do with it. It’s others, but certainly not me,’ ” the pope said."I felt the duty to come her today to pray, to perform a gesture of closeness, byt also to awaken our conscience to that what happened doesn't repeat itself" he said. Francis compared apathy in the face of the suffering of immigrants to the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan, in which a half-dead man lying in the street is ignored until the Samaritan finally stops to help.
“So many of us, and I include myself, are disoriented,” the pope said. “We’re no longer attentive to the world in which we live. We don’t care about it; we don’t take care of what God created for all; and we’re no longer capable even of taking care of one another.”
“When this disorientation takes on the dimensions of the world, it leads to tragedies such as what we’ve seen [here],” the pope said.
With this in mind, the Pope insisted that each and every person learn to respect the other and receive one another in the compassion of maternal care. He notes that many on their journey to a newer and brighter future many often fall to human trafficking - another grave social justice issue.
“Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters?” the pope asked, saying that too often, the answer is, “No one.”
“We all answer, ‘It’s not me. I have nothing to do with it. It’s others, but certainly not me,’ ” the pope said."I felt the duty to come her today to pray, to perform a gesture of closeness, byt also to awaken our conscience to that what happened doesn't repeat itself" he said. Francis compared apathy in the face of the suffering of immigrants to the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan, in which a half-dead man lying in the street is ignored until the Samaritan finally stops to help.
“So many of us, and I include myself, are disoriented,” the pope said. “We’re no longer attentive to the world in which we live. We don’t care about it; we don’t take care of what God created for all; and we’re no longer capable even of taking care of one another.”
“When this disorientation takes on the dimensions of the world, it leads to tragedies such as what we’ve seen [here],” the pope said.
I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.’ The righteous will then answer him, ‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!
-Matthew 25: 35-40 Good News Translation (GNT)