ROME — Pope Francis called for common, international solutions to migration Friday, referring to immigration as “extremely urgent” and an “enormous problem.”
Appealing for multilateral cooperation to tackle global problems, the pope told participants in a conference on Mediterranean geopolitics that “it is becoming ever more evident – from climate change to the pandemic – that not only states but entire continents cannot continue to ignore one another.”
If this approach is necessary everywhere, the pontiff asserted in his message, it is “even more so” in the case of the Mediterranean region.
“The immense resources and possibilities of this sea require a new approach, not individual and self-interested, but united and shared by the countries that border it and those that do not, while in various ways having an interest in Mediterranean policies,” he said, underscoring the “many regional conflicts” in the area.
Migrants sit in the Roman Catholic church of the Holy Cross where the Pope will hold an ecumenical prayer, near the United Nations buffer zone in the Cypriot city of Nicosia, Europe’s last divided capital, on December 3, 2021. (ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images)
A little migrant boy has some fun in the Roman Catholic church of the Holy Cross in the Cypriot city of Nicosia on December 3, 2021. Pope Francis appealed for a “sense of fraternity” in an open-air mass in Cyprus on Friday, the second day of a visit to the divided Mediterranean island that has focused heavily on the plight of migrants. (ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images)
“Among the different problems involving the Mediterranean – and calling for far-sighted political vision – is the extremely urgent issue of migration, which has always been close to my heart,” Francis said.
It was the issue of immigration “that motivated my first apostolic visit, to the island of Lampedusa in 2013,” he added.
“The events of these past years have shown ever more clearly that effective intervention can only result from a combined effort, one not limited to the border countries but shared by the continents of which they are part,” Francis said.
“No one should be left alone to manage this enormous problem,” he insisted. “Everyone needs to feel responsible, for everyone is in fact responsible.”
“The migration issue demonstrates once more that everything is connected,” he declared. “It also reminds us any stable solution calls for an approach capable of taking into account its multiple aspects.”
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