There’s never been much doubt as to where Pope Francis, the first Pope from Latin America, stands on illegal migration.
In 2016, he led several hundred schoolchildren in a chant celebrating illegal migrants: “They are not a danger, they are in danger.”
In 2018 he issued a message saying the welfare of migrants was more important than any given country’s security: “The principle of the centrality of the human person . . . obliges us to always prioritise personal safety over national security.” [Emphasis added.]
And just the other day, in observance of something called the “World Day of Social Communications,” he advised journalists to write stories that do not “portray immigrants in a negative fashion but rather sympathetically as human-interest stories.” Francis counseled:
[T]o overcome prejudices about migrants and to melt the hardness of our hearts, we should try to listen to their stories. Give each of them a name and a story. Many good journalists already do this. And many others would like to do it, if only they could. Let us encourage them! Let us listen to these stories!
So, in other words, avoid the nasty old statistics about displacement and crime and rape and disease and festering anti-Christian hatred on the part of many newcomers. Instead, write glowing, sentimental homilies about how migrants need to be “welcomed, protected and loved.” That way, Francis said, “[W]e would have before our eyes not numbers, not dangerous invaders, but the faces and stories, gazes, expectations and sufferings of real men and women to listen to.”
Then, as the pontiff reluctantly concedes, “Everyone would then be free to support the migration policies” of their choice. As long as they keep in mind that Immortal Soul thing and know that His Holiness Pontifex Maximus is always watching.
For more, see Breitbart.