Pope Francis Offers Triple Shout-Out to Migrants in Christmas Blessing

“It is injustice that makes them cross deserts and seas that become cemeteries,” he said, adding:

It is injustice that forces them to ensure unspeakable forms of abuse, enslavement of every kind and torture in inhumane detention camps. It is injustice that turns them away from places where they might have hope for a dignified life, but instead find themselves before walls of indifference.

Finally, in his closing invocation of the blessings of the Christ Child upon “all the suffering members of our human family,” Francis once again brought up migrants.

“Through our friendship, such as it is, may he draw close to the elderly and the lonely, to migrants and the marginalized,” he said.

Pope Francis said Saturday that migrants are among the most vulnerable and marginalized members of society, while to God, no one is a “stranger.”

In his yearly Christmas address to the Roman Curia last Saturday, the pope called on the Church to promote the “integral development of the human person.”

This development takes place by “serving those who are most vulnerable and marginalized, particularly those forced to emigrate, who at the present time represent a voice crying in the wilderness of our humanity,” Francis said in an allusion to the biblical figure of Saint John the Baptist, the precursor of Jesus.

“The Church is thus called to remind everyone that it is not simply a matter of social or migration questions but of human persons, of our brothers and sisters who today are a symbol of all those discarded by the globalized society,” he said.