Migrants & Refugees: the Pope asks us to build the future together

By Linda Bordoni

Every year the WDMR is the last Sunday of September; in 2022 it will be celebrated on 25 September.

Pope Francis has chosen the title “Building the Future with Migrants and Refugees” for his annual message.

In the video, the Pope explains that we cannot think of building a future that is not inclusive.

“We are all called to commit ourselves to building a future based on a new global system that better responds to God’s plan, a world where everyone can live in peace and prosperity,” he says.

The video also includes short testimonies of young people from different countries and the words of Cardinal Francesco Montenegro, who shares his experience of living together with migrants on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, one of the gateways into Europe.

He speaks of how the inhabitants of Lampedusa, who were shortlisted to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in the person of former Mayor, Giusi Nicolini, for her witness of welcome towards refugees and migrants, reacted to the nomination. They observed, The Cardinal says, that the true prize for this kind of situation - in which people are forced to undertake dangerous, and often fatal journeys,  only to find themselves faced with rejection and disregard for their very human dignity, - would be for such realities to not happen anymore.