Mission Intention of the Holy Father for the Month of August

(August 02, 2010) Victims of Discrimination, Hunger, and Forced Emigration: That the Church may be a home for all people in need, opening its doors to any who suffer from racial or religious discrimination, hunger, or wars forcing their emigration. Today migration, forced or unforced, is a world phenomenon. It is the history of the human race as it is the history of God’s people. The Jews migrated to Egypt in time of famine, and then centuries later followed Moses back to their home-land. After Jesus was born, the Holy Family too fled to Egypt to escape the murderous intent of King Herod. Jesus began his life as a political refugee. People have always migrated to escape drought, hardship, war, religious persecution, and discrimination, and they do so still. Each year millions leave their own countries to find food, shelter, and safety in another country, looking for better living conditions. However, they are often rejected, feared, denied their rights of asylum, discriminated against and treated as criminals, persecuted and even killed. This is because they are different, they speak another language, come from another country. This month Pope Benedict XVI asks us to pray for those who have been forced to emigrate. In his encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, the Pontiff calls for policies among nations for safeguarding the needs and rights of individual migrants and their families. This is the mission of the Church and of every baptized person, even in the era of globalization. It is a mission that with attentive pastoral solicitude is also directed to the variegated universe of migrant students far from home, immigrants, refugees, displaced people, evacuees, including the victims of modern forms of slavery, and of human trafficking. Challenged by these, the Holy Father asks us to pray with him that the Church may be a home for all people in need. He tells us that every migrant is a human person and a member of the Body of Christ, possessing fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance.