Pope Francis: Italians Should Welcome Immigrants as ‘Sons and Daughters’

ROME — Pope Francis said Monday that immigrants are helping to replace Italy’s falling population and urged Italians to welcome them as their own children.

“Immigrants help when they fit in well,” the pontiff told a group of government officials gathered in the Vatican. “Italy is a land where there is a lack of children, and migrants come.”

In his address, the pope repeated his concern over Italy’s low birthrate, lamenting that Italians “don’t have children.”

He also recounted that one of my secretaries was walking through the square the other day and came upon a lady pushing a baby carriage. He bent down to caress the child and saw it was a little dog in the carriage.

“Puppies taking the place of children: think about this,” the pope urged.

He also insisted that Italians have the “responsibility” to have children but also to “welcome migrants as their sons and daughters.”

The task of caring for migrants is “not easy,” Francis said, “because it entrusts to your care wounded people, vulnerable people, often lost and returning from terrible traumas.”

“They are faces, not numbers,” he asserted, “people who cannot simply be classified, but who should be embraced, brothers and sisters who need to be rescued from the tentacles of criminal organizations, which are capable of speculating mercilessly on their misfortunes.”

In some countries in North Africa, migrants who want to come to Europe “are treated as slaves, tortured, even killed,” he said.

The pope underscored the “arduous task” of local governments to organize an “orderly reception” of migrants in the area, based on “constructive integration into the local fabric.”

“We have to be careful. Migrants must be received, accompanied, promoted and integrated,” he said. “If this does not happen, there is danger. If there is no such path to integration, there is danger.”

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