Respect for life includes welcoming migrants, Vatican officials say

(Nov.04,2009): Catholics' respect for human life and dignity must be clear in the way they welcome migrants and refugees, offer them pastoral care and lobby their governments for fairer treatment of people on the move, said Archbishop Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers. Addressing a Vatican Press conference on Tuesday, previewing the 6^th World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees to be held from Nov.9-12 at the Vatican, Archbishop Veglio said, "We know as Christians, that life's core is fundamentally spiritual and that the challenge is how to promote and safeguard every human person, focusing particularly on the most vulnerable, including migrants, who leave home in search of a better life, and refugees forced to flee violence or oppression..
Archbishop Veglio said with globalization, the church not only has had to reach out to welcome and assist people on the move, but also to try to address situations that force them to seek a new life away from their homeland, as well as attitudes and policies that make it difficult, or impossible for them to live with dignity in a new land. He called on Christians to work with other people of good will to build a civilization that is worthy of the human person.
Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the council, said the congress would bring together more than 300 representatives of bishops' conferences, Catholic aid agencies and religious orders, to see how to improve the way Catholics welcome and assist newcomers. Citizens have a right to be concerned about the security of their homelands, but for Christians, security "must always be seen together with welcome that is the Catholic approach," Archbishop Marchetto said. The council secretary added that the number of people living outside their homelands is huge. There are an estimated 200 million migrants in the world and some 11 million refugees, who have fled violence or persecution