Pope Leo has used the final day of his week-long tour of Spain to stress that “all of us are migrants” as he praised the power of integration, adding: “Yesterday’s foreigner may be today’s brother and neighbour.”
The pontiff arrived on Friday in Tenerife, the largest and most populous of the Canary Islands. Soon after, he made his way to a reception centre housed in a former military barracks, which has accommodated as many as 4,000 people, to address the hundreds of migrants gathered there.
Since his arrival on Thursday in the archipelago, one of Europe’s migration hotspots, the pontiff has delivered some of his most pointed remarks to date on migration. The Atlantic route to the Canary Islands ranks among the world’s deadliest, with an estimated 1,906 people – roughly five people a day – losing their lives last year in attempting to reach Europe.
On Friday Leo cast their plight as one that affects everyone. “In a sense, all of us are migrants, for we are all pilgrims on our way to our heavenly homeland,” he said. “Let us help make this journey more humane for everyone by contributing in whatever way we can.”
His remarks came on the same day that the EU’s landmark overhaul of migration was to take effect. Rights campaigners have widely criticised the hardline measures, with Human Rights Watch saying this week that the overhaul “takes a sledgehammer to the right of asylum”.
On Friday Leo called on leaders to do more to welcome and integrate migrants, warning that many face a “silent shipwreck” after they arrive, finding themselves “left alone in a city, without a voice, without ties, work or a sense of security, and susceptible to those who take advantage of vulnerability”.
His call to protect the rights of migrants has clashed with the rhetoric espoused by many politicians, particularly from far-right and conservative parties, who have taken a hard line on migrants even as they profess to hold Christian values.
On his visit to Spain, the US-born pope has consistently highlighted this incongruence. “A human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea, to the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of aid,” Leo said. “Every life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family.”
On Friday he also told people smugglers – who often charge thousands of euros a person to ferry people across borders, forcing people later into prostitution or other forms of black market labour by withholding their documents – that they would face God’s wrath for taking advantage of desperation.
“I want to speak clearly to those who take advantage of desperation; to those who organise death routes, traffic in people, withhold documents, exploit workers, threaten women, deceive families, and turn the suffering of others into a business. Stop! Repent!” he said. “For every life lost, every family deceived, every body subjugated, every woman threatened, every worker exploited, you will have to appear before divine justice.”
The remarks came a day after the pope warned: “We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead,” and called for a reckoning as to why we had built a world where so many “must risk death to seek life”.
On Friday, the pontiff heard from Bousso Diouf, originally from Nigeria, who said she was speaking in the name of the many who had been forced to leave their homes in search of security, peace and dignity.
“The road to get here was not an easy one,” she said. “The journey was full of fear, pain and uncertainty … It meant facing hunger, cold, despair and often death.”
She said she had a “simple but profoundly human request” for society. “We aren’t asking for privileges. We aren’t asking for compassion. We just want respect, humanity and the chance to live with dignity.”
The pontiff listened intently as she spoke. “We ask that borders do not become walls of indifference,” she continued. “Let us not be seen only as immigrants, as numbers or documents, but as people with history, with dreams, with families and with hope.”