The dominant theme of the historic address by Pope Francis to the US Congress on Thursday was certainly immigration.
In the heart of American power, the pontiff spoke of “thousands of persons [who] are led to travel north in search of a better life” – in North America, which has been rattled by a political war of words as thousands travel from Mexico and Central America to the US, but also with direct reference to the ongoing European migration crisis.
Here to make sense of Francis’s message on immigration from both sides of the Atlantic are Guardian religion correspondent Harriet Sherwood and Guardian US chief reporter Ed Pilkington.
Ed Pilkington:
We expected Pope Francis to deliver strong words on immigration, but if I were Donald Trump I’d be quaking in my boots. The frontrunner Republican presidential candidate wasn’t mentioned by name, of course, but he was certainly present in the passage the pontiff reserved on the subject.It was devastating.Francis got one of the biggest cheers of the speech with this line: “We are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners.” He called on Congress to reject a “mindset of hostility”.Then he referred to the thousands of people travelling north from Central America and Mexico to enter the US.Francis spoke not in terms of rape and murder, as Trump has chosen to do, but as epitomes of the American dream – people like so many in the US who have come here in search of a better life.“Is this not what we want for our own children?” is a phrase that will continue to resonate in the fevered presidential debate for some time to come.Indeed, new data shows that 47% more unaccompanied children were apprehended crossing the southern US border last month than in August of last year, at the height of the United States’ own immigration crisis.
Harriet Sherwood:
And the pope referred again – as he did at the White House on Wednesday – to his own family background: “I say this to you as the son of immigrants.” Those were practically his first public words on US soil, so his message couldn’t be more clear.But I don’t think it’s just about the US track record on immigration. He’s also talking about a global crisis: “Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the second world war.”That’s referring to the hundreds of thousands of people trudging across Europein search of a better life. So David Cameron and the rest of the UK government should listen up, too.
Ed Pilkington:
Absolutely. And this is a message that will resonate in the US as well, where leaders of both main parties have so far been hesitant to make firm commitments about taking more Syrian refugees.We asked the presidential candidates recently what they would do to help solve the Syrian refugee crisis and were met with an almost universal evasion.
Harriet Sherwood:
Yes. Both the US and the UK have been put to shame by the response of the German government, which has opened its doors to refugees. But, in a characteristic move, Pope Francis has also called for every Catholic parish to take in a refugee family, and indeed is hosting one in the Vatican.That was a very practical action, and consistent with his papacy. It’s interesting to wonder if history might have taken a different course if every Catholic parish had taken in a Jewish family in 1938.
Ed Pilkington:
I’m struck by how effortlessly Francis moved in his speech from the very practical, as you say, to evoking the finer spirit in humanity: Moses, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King.In that tradition, he called on Congress to “avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome”.I couldn’t help thinking at that point of the wall that Trump wants to build along the US border with Mexico, and his talk of mass deportation of all 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Harriet Sherwood:
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Indeed. And it’s really significant that he is clear that we should open our doors not just to people fleeing war and persecution, but also those who are often termed “economic migrants”.These are people in search of greater opportunities, Francis said.“Is this not what we want for our own children?” And: “Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves.”These are strong words and clear guidance from the Holy Father, and our political leaders should be shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
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