Pope Francis’ Four Words to Meet the Challenge of Migrations: Welcoming, Protecting, Promoting and Integrating

Abstract

Pope Francis’ commitment to help the Catholic Church and society meet the challenges posed by migrations is widely acknowledged. From the beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis opened the Catholic Church to the new perspective of the “peripheries,” focusing on marginalized peoples and giving special attention to displaced groups in all corners of the world. These are reflected in his writings, but especially in his gestures. This chapter focuses on the four words Pope Francis offers as a roadmap for a positive and constructive approach towards migrants, considered as persons rather than as numbers: to welcome; to protect; to promote and to integrate. From this perspective, the study examines the Pope’s approach to look at the present phenomena not so much as a danger, but as an opportunity for the European continent to find a new identity and an intercultural enrichment. In this process a vital role can be played by ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. Pope Francis’ address on the World Migrants Day (2018) is, in all probability, one of those documents which will go down in history as a landmark in the social teaching of the Church.