By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
The following is a statement by Archbishop Thomas Wenski for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Sept. 29, 2024.
On Sunday, Sept. 29, the Holy See observes World Day of Migrants and Refugees to deepen the world’s awareness of the plight of those forced to leave their homes due to natural disasters or political, social or economic turmoil. People should have a right not to be forced to migrate from their homelands and family relations. But if people cannot secure conditions worthy of human life in their homeland, then they have the right to seek those conditions elsewhere.
The massive numbers of people on the move – throughout the world – requires a twofold response by people of good will: first, how can we help create conditions of stability so that people are not forced to leave their native countries?– for such an exodus usually indicates a real loss of talent, resources, and human creativity that can compromise the future of the sending countries for generations; and, second, how can we better welcome and integrate newcomers so that their potential to contribute to the lands that receive them can be enhanced? In any case, we need to see them as more than statistics – or worse, as burdens – but as real people, whom Christ identifies as among the “least of his brethren” (cf. Mt 25)
Like the Hebrews at the time of the Exodus, migrants and refugees flee from oppression, abuse, insecurity, discrimination, and lack of possibilities to build a future of hope for themselves and their families. War, famine, violence, persecution, poverty are the “push” factors that set so many people on the move. They migrate not because of some quest for adventure but out of desperate necessity.
The World Day of Migrants and Refugees is a call for our solidarity with people on the move. Globalization has made our world smaller. We are all neighbors now. We need to learn to live as brothers and sisters in one human family.
The Catholic Church is perhaps the first truly “globalized” institution, bringing together into one Body people of all races, classes and nations. By “welcoming the stranger,” we Catholics are called to mirror to the world what a truly reconciled and reconciling world can look like.
