Pope: Guarantee welcome and dignity to refugees

Pope Benedict XVI appealed to civil authorities and “all people of goodwill to guarantee welcome and dignified living conditions to refugees” this Sunday on the eve of the UN’s World Day for Refugees. The Holy Father launched his appeal from Serravalle Stadium in the tiny landlocked Republic of San Marino (in the centre of the Italian peninsula), on a one day pastoral visit to the diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro.

At midday, before the recitation of the Angelus prayer, the Pope expressed his desire to mark the UN Day for Refugees: “On this occasion, this year we mark the sixtieth anniversary of the adoption of the international convention to protect those who are persecuted and forced to flee their own countries. I urge civil authorities and all people of good will to guarantee a welcome and dignified living conditions for refugees, until they can freely and safely return to their homeland”.

During his Angelus he also recalled the beatification today in Dax, France, of Sister Marguerite Rutan of the Daughters of Charity. He said “In the second half of the eighteenth century, she worked with great commitment in the hospital in Dax, but in the tragic persecution that followed the Revolution, was sentenced to death for her faith and fidelity to the Church”.

Earlier Pope Benedict led mass for the feast of the Holy Trinity, describing the solemnity during his homily as “God’s feast”. He recalled the ancient Christian roots of the people of San Marino, evangelised in the 3rd century by Sts. Leo and Marino. The best way to appreciate a legacy, he said, “is to cultivate and enrich it” and he told the 25 thousand present in the Serravalle stadium that they are “called to develop this precious deposit in one of the most decisive moments in history"

The Pope said that today this mission is having to deal with “profound and rapid cultural, social, economic and political transformations that have determined new reference points and changed attitudes, customs and sensibilities”. Even here, he noted “there are difficulties and obstacles, mainly due to hedonistic models, which cloud the mind and threaten to undo all morality. The temptation has crept in to believe that the wealth of man is not his faith, but his personal and social power, his intelligence, his culture and his ability to manipulate scientific, technological and social realities. Thus, in these lands, the Christian faith and values have begun to be replaced with a presumed wealth, which in the end reveals itself inconsistent and incapable of containing the great promise of truth, goodness, of beauty and justice, which for centuries your ancestors identified with the experience of faith. Moreover the many families in crisis must not be forgotten, compounded by a widespread psychological and spiritual fragility of spouses, as well as the fatigue experienced by many educators in their attempts to ensure continuity in the formation of young people, conditioned by various uncertainties, first among all their role in society and employment opportunities”.

Pope Benedict XVI concluded with a call to the faithful of the diocese to be like leaven in society “showing both in Montefeltro and San Marino that you are present, proactive and consistent Christians”. Listen to Emer McCarthy's report: