Francis says the Church must overcome its suspicion towards migrants

Calls for international cooperation to tackle issues of trafficking and asylum seekers.

Vatican City:  Francis has presented his Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees on Tuesday, stating that no nation can deal with the issues of trafficking and asylum seekers singlehandedly.

The “suspicions, hostilities and prejudices” that are also present “in ecclesial communities” need to be overcome, Francis said in his Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which the Church will celebrate on 18 January 2015. In the text, which was presented in the Vatican Tuesday, Francis once again denounced “the shameful and criminal trafficking of human beings" and called for “a systematic and active cooperation between States and international organizations” as “no country can singlehandedly face the difficulties associated with this phenomenon.”

The Pope – whose grandparents migrated from Italy to Argentina – said: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

“The Church without frontiers, Mother to all, spreads throughout the world a culture of acceptance and solidarity, in which no one is seen as useless, out of place or disposable,” Francis writes in his text for the event.

“In an age of such vast movements of migration, large numbers of people are leaving their homelands, with a suitcase full of fears and desires, to undertake a hopeful and dangerous trip in search of more humane living conditions,” the Pope added.

Source: Vatican Insider