Pope Urges the Church to See the Face of Christ in Migrants
Submitted by Barb Messerknecht
From: NCR and Catholic News Service
The Catholic Church can draw closer to Jesus by accompanying migrants in their pursuit of a better life, Pope Francis said.
In the faces of migrants, the church “discovers the face of Christ,” he wrote, and like St. Veronica who offered a cloth to wipe Jesus’ face during his passion, the church “brings relief and hope on the ‘Way of the Cross’ of migration.”
The pope wrote his comments in a letter March 21 to participants at a meeting between bishops, church officials and migrants in Lajas Blancas, Panama, near the Darién Gap jungle crossed by thousands of migrants each day. The meeting took place during a three-day conference organized by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development for bishops from Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama to discuss accompanying migrants.
Migrant brothers and sisters “represent the suffering flesh of Christ” since they are “forced to leave their land, to face the risks and tribulations of a hard road without finding another way out,” Francis wrote in his message to the group.