Ministering to migrants in detention in the UK

(Vatican Radio) Jesus invites us all to care for those who suffer, especially the victims of new forms of poverty and slavery. In a message for next January’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees, released by the Vatican on Tuesday, Pope Francis says the mission of the Church is to love Christ, “particularly in the poorest and most abandoned.”  Among these people, the Pope says, are migrants and refugees, “who are trying to escape difficult living conditions and dangers of every kind.” In the message, entitled ‘Church without frontiers, mother to all,’ the Pope quotes the passage from St Matthew’s Gospel where the Lord says ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to me.’

Rev. Bill Cave has been in prison ministry for the past two decades, working at The Verne prison on the southern English coast, which has just been designated an immigration detention centre. Philippa Hitchen spoke to him about his work and about the European Prison Chaplains’ Association which he serves as vice-chairman……

Listen: 

The Verne is one of two prisons on the island of Portland…..since the Second World War it was a place for people serving life sentences but in the last 12 months it’s become a detention centre for people being detained by the immigration service….

Circumstances are very difficult….some people come with best of intentions but things don't work out for them, others are driven out of desperation, warfare and poverty, many have had a prison sentence and their status in the UK needs to be reviewed, or if they’ve been trafficked, they may have committed no offences but are being held while their situation is examined….

Prison law in the UK requires provision of pastoral care…it’s obviously a very challenging agenda but I’m lucky to have a team of 10 or 15 mainly part time colleagues, plus a full time Catholic and Muslim colleague. We can’t do anything to alleviate the circumstances that have brought people into detention centres but we can hope to make that experience as positive as possible in terms of positive esteem for people as human beings….

The questions of migration and immigration are burning political issues across Europe. As chaplains we have a very specific field of concern for pastoral care but we also express our views back to our institutions….we really do need to look at the problems of poverty, isolation and deprivation for people in their home countries, as well as the dangers of people making perilous journeys across the Mediterranean….

The Gospel tells us to share our bread, out clothes, the things we have with others but sometimes there is little you can do but sit down and give people your time to listen…..