Francis is presiding over the closing session of a gathering of Mediterranean Catholic bishops during a visit to France.
Pope Francis has criticised the “fanaticism of indifference” that greets migrants seeking a better life as he arrived in Marseille after a new influx of refugees from Africa sparked a backlash from some of Europe’s increasingly anti-migrant leaders.
“Cruelty, a lack of humanity. A terrible lack of humanity,” Francis said of the Lampedusa drama as he flew to Marseille.The pope’s position on migration is an increasingly lonely one in Europe, where some countries are emphasising border fences, repatriations and the possibility of a naval blockade to keep a new influx of would-be refugees out.
Francis, who has long lamented that the Mediterranean Sea has become “the world’s biggest cemetery”, confirmed his visit months ago, but it comes as Italy is again seeing an increasing number of migrant arrivals. “France will not take in migrants from Lampedusa,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said this week on French TV network TF1.
“The church must measure these evils well and find a path that is neither naively irenic nor aggressive out of special interests, but prophetic” by being close to migrants and living among them, Mr Aveline told reporters in Rome before the visit.
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