2018 Peace Msge: Migration an opportunity to build
peace
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| Pope Francis releases a dove as a symbol of peace.- AFP |
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has placed the plight of
migrants and refugees at the centre of his 2018 World Day of Peace
Message.
Entitled Migrants and Refugees: Men and Women in
search of Peace, the Holy Father encourages the faithful and all people of
good will to welcome and support these brothers and sisters. He also underlines
migration should be viewed as an opportunity to build peace.
One of those presenting this year’s message at the Holy See
Press Office on Friday was Jesuit Fr Ismael-Jose Chan Honzaga, an advisor
and law Professor at the Atheneum University in Manila.
Speaking about the choice of this year’s theme Fr Chan
Honzaga said, “we all know what’s happening globally and how migration or human
movement has always been historically a global phenomenon. But, unfortunately
especially in recent years, we’ve also seen how these migrations have become
forced migrations.”
Supporting Migrants and Refugees
He goes on to say that the Pope invites people with this
message to look at migration and the people “in this particular situation not
as threats but as people who need our support, who need also our embracing.”
Fr Chan Honzaga points out that in the last few years
migration has been seen as something negative adding “we have become more
afraid rather than welcoming” and that’s why the Holy Father has asked in this
message that we welcome these brothers and sisters.
The Pope in the early days of his pontificate went to see
for himself the plight of those migrants who had made the perilous journey by
boat to the island of Lampedusa off the Italian coast and the Jesuit Professor
commented that this visit along with others, “awakened his (the Pope’s) heart
all the more to how it is actually a crisis on the global stage.”
“The Pope giving this message and issuing this stance I
think is a wake-up call, especially to the Catholics and to all people of
good will for that matter that our world is a common home and our humanity is a
common family…”, he says.
The 2018 World Day of Peace is celebrated on January 1st.
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