Vatican City, Jul 25, 2025 / 16:23 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV in a message released Friday pointed out that Catholic migrants and refugees “can become missionaries of hope today in the countries that welcome them.”
“With their spiritual enthusiasm and vitality, they can help revitalize ecclesial communities that have become rigid and weighed down, where spiritual desertification is advancing at an alarming rate,” the pope noted July 25 in his message for the 111th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which will be celebrated Oct. 4–5, coinciding with the Jubilee of Migrants and the Jubilee of the Missions.
The pontiff focused his reflection on the link between Christian hope and migration and praised the faith with which immigrants “defy death on the various contemporary migration routes.”
“Many migrants, refugees, and displaced persons are privileged witnesses of hope. Indeed, they demonstrate this daily through their resilience and trust in God, as they face adversity while seeking a future in which they glimpse that integral human development,” the pope noted in the statement.
He emphasized that their presence “should be recognized and appreciated as a true divine blessing, an opportunity to open oneself to the grace of God, who gives new energy and hope to his Church.”
The Holy Father pointed out that “in a world darkened by war and injustice, even when all seems lost, migrants and refugees stand as messengers of hope. Their courage and tenacity bear heroic testimony to a faith that sees beyond what our eyes can see and gives them the strength to defy death on the various contemporary migration routes.”
“Migrants and refugees remind the Church of her pilgrim dimension, perpetually journeying toward her final homeland, sustained by a hope that is a theological virtue,” he added.
Thus, the pope called for hope for “a future of peace and of respect for the dignity of all” despite the “frightening scenarios” of “wars, violence, injustice, and extreme weather events.”
Arms trade and current climate crisis
“The prospect of a renewed arms race and the development of new armaments, including nuclear weapons, the lack of consideration for the harmful effects of the ongoing climate crisis, and the impact of profound economic inequalities make the challenges of the present and the future increasingly demanding,” the pontiff noted in the message.
Pope Leo warned the Catholic Church against the temptation of “sedentarization” and, therefore, of ceasing to be a “civitas peregrine,” since as St. Augustine points out in “The City of God,” the people of God are “journeying toward the heavenly homeland,” because otherwise she ceases to be “in the world” and becomes “of the world.”
“This temptation was already present in the early Christian communities, so much so that the Apostle Paul had to remind the Church of Philippi that ‘our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself’ (Phil 3:20-21),” Leo XIV emphasized.
He also called for a move beyond individualism, which he defined as a “serious threat” to the “sharing of responsibilities, multilateral cooperation,” and “the pursuit of the common good.”
In this regard, he criticized the “widespread tendency to look after the interests of limited communities” and pointed out that there is “a clear analogy” between immigrants and “the experience of the people of Israel wandering in the desert, who faced every danger while trusting in the Lord’s protection.”
Finally, Pope Leo expressed his desire to entrust every migrant, and those who accompany them with generosity and compassion, “to the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary, comfort of migrants.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Sorry, this rubbish bears no relation to the hard facts on the ground of the immigration crisis that besets the world. The vast throngs of Third World immigrants breaking into the West would not recognize themselves as described in the poetic words of Leo’s ridiculous statement. Almost all would openly laugh at this flowery nonsense.
A great part of the West consists of the “Third World. ”
I imagine many of our immigrant ancestors were similar but immigration needs to be legal to be safe.
All the Palestinians who must be expelled from Gaza and the West Bank because Israel wants the land should be sent to a certain corner of Louisiana, but only on the condition that they have to stay there.
Honestly, if we could move the Muslim and Christian Arabs as far away as possible from the influence and coercion of Hamas it could be a very good thing.
Or just put Israel back in charge of Gaza .
It’s a win-win equation for all parties. Migrants and refugees are ambassadors of the Good News. They arrive with energies, skills, goodwill, patience, and a burning desire to collaborate with their distinguished hosts in the task of world rebuilding.
None of these points is even remotely true. Migrants do no such things.
The Pope says: “Catholic migrants save countries that welcome them from ‘spiritual desertification’”
I gather that Leo will be tearing down the Vatican walls to allow entry to as many “migrants” who might want to enter. God knows the Vatican could use a remedy for its own “spiritual desertification” following the desuetude of the Francis papacy.
20 million illegal migrants into the United States during the Catholic Biden administration has only contributed to the desertification of society. How many can be admitted to any entity is in the hands of those who constitute it. Pious poetics from our new Holy Father contribute absolutely nothing to a sound resolution to this dilemma orchestrated by anarchists and Marxists in the United States and in Europe.
Pope Leo need put his thinking cap on and examine the global situation like an well informed adult Christian.
I’m all in favor of border security but the folks who have lived here and kept a clean record haven’t caused desecration. The gang members, drug dealers, and trafficking networks- yes. And we’ve cooperated with them by receiving the contraband.
It takes two sides cooperation to make a smuggling operation successful.
If they came here illegally, or overstayed some kind of visa, they are de facto, without a clean record.