Almost 40 years ago, St Pope John Paul II, an outstanding defender of human rights, described the refugee problem as “a truly shameful wound of our time”.
The Holy Father pronounced himself to this effect on June 25, 1982, while addressing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Poul Hartling of Denmark, who was visiting him at the Vatican.
At the time, there were from 10 to 15 million refugees throughout the world. Today, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order is estimated to have risen to around 85 million.
Meanwhile, so many young soldiers and innocent civilians continue to be nailed to the cross of devastating insane wars and conflicts.
So many sorrowful and traumatised mothers, wives and children continue to mourn the wasted lives of their loved ones.
Way back in 1992, when about 90 per cent of refugees were found in Third World countries and on the watch of Pope John Paul II, the Holy See offered to the whole world a far-looking down-to-earth document entitled, Refugees: A Challenge to Solidarity.
The aim of the document was to revive often-waning public attention to the inhuman conditions of refugees, tossed about in time and space at the point of losing their identity. It also sought to stimulate international solidarity, not only with regard to the effects, but, above all, to the causes of the tragedy: a world where human rights were being violated with impunity, also producing refugees of all kinds.
The authors had in mind legally recognised refugees, de facto refugees and people displaced within their own country.
Describing refuges as a challenge to the conscience of the world, the Church warned that there will be refugees who are victims of the abuse of power so long as relations between persons and between nations are not based on a true capacity to accept one another more and more in diversity and mutual enrichment.
It called for a mentality of hospitality, a more comprehensive protection of refugees, rejection of the silence of indifference and the concrete responsibilities of states.
The hope was that the condition of refugees that reaches the very limit of human suffering is seen as a pressing appeal to the conscience of all. Yet, the situation continued to go from bad to worse, also leading to many lives being lost in the desert or in the sea, as people try to reach safe places in the hope that they would be welcomed, protected and helped to rebuild their lives in freedom and peace.
Today, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide is estimated to have risen to around 85 million- Charles Buttigieg
The Mediterranean alone has seen around 24,000 people disappearing since 2014. Indeed, it has become a huge cemetery without tombstones.
No wonder Pope Francis, himself the son of a migrant family, has made the defence of refugees and all vulnerable people the cornerstone of his pontificate and feels so much for people seeking international protection.
In the shipwreck that thousands of men, women and children have experienced in the Mediterranean in recent years, Francis sees another kind of shipwreck taking place: the shipwreck of civilisation, which threatens not only migrants but us all.
Answering his own question on how we can save ourselves from this shipwreck which risks sinking the ship of our civilisation, during his stay in our beloved country, the pope offered particular advice. He said that this can happen by conducting ourselves with kindness and humanity, by regarding people not merely as statistics but for what they really are: people, men and women, brothers and sisters, each with his or her own life story.
“By imagining that those same people we see on crowded boats or adrift in the sea, on our televisions or in the newspapers, could be any one of us, or our sons or daughters,” he added.
During his visit to Malta, Francis also lamented that it is distressing to see how the enthusiasm for peace, which emerged after World War II, has faded in these recent decades, as has the progress of the international community, with a few powers that go ahead on their own account, seeking spaces and zones of influence. In this way, he said, not only peace but also so many great questions, like the fight against hunger and inequality, are no longer on the list of the main political agendas.
“The solution to all these crises,” proposed the Holy Father, “is through taking care of all, since global problems require global solutions. Let us help one another to sense people’s yearning for peace. Let us work to lay the foundations of an evermore expanded dialogue. Let us go back to gathering in international peace conferences, where the theme of disarmament will have a central place, where our thoughts will turn to future generations! And where the enormous funds that continue to be destined to weaponry may be diverted to development, healthcare and nutrition,” appealed the pope.
His is a very sensible humane formula, if applied genuinely and effectively, towards hopefully seeing the start of the healing of the now chronic shameful wound of our time.
Meanwhile, as Pope Francis told the journalists accompanying him on the Air Malta plane taking him back from our islands to Rome, “May the Lord have mercy on us, on all of us” because “everyone of us is guilty”.
Charles Buttigieg, former refugee commissioner