Caritas Secretary General on humanitarian action in Middle East

(Vatican Radio) The dire humanitarian crisis in Syria and Iraq was firmly under the spotlight at a meeting at the Vatican on Thursday.

The gathering organized by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum brought together various Bishops from the Middle East as well as Catholic Charities working in the region.

They were there to assess the work undertaken by Church organizations in the last few years in response to the crisis and to evaluate the plight of Christian communities in countries affected by conflict.

The one day session was also attended by the United Nations Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, Stephen O’Brien who spoke about the work of his organization.

Following the meeting the participants were received in audience by Pope Francis.

Caritas Internationalis was represented by its Secretary General Michel Roy who spoke to Lydia O’Kane about the  "huge humanitarian crisis" stemming from conflicts in the Middle East and also about the engagement of the United Nations saying, “ we need the UN to co-ordinate and strengthen the humanitarian aid which is terribly needed”. On the issue of the migrant crisis in Europe and the situation facing refugees in the Middle East, Mr Roy said, their concern was having enough money to assist those in need. “The international community, as I said earlier, is not giving enough money… and we’re afraid that (with) so many people (coming to) Germany for instance, the German financial support to the refugees in Jordan and Lebanon will decrease because the money will be put to welcome the refugees in Germany, so it’s kind of a vicious circle.”

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Speaking about Pope Francis’ upcoming speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 25^th, he said that he imagined that the Holy Father would talk about his most recent encyclical Laudato Si and stress the need for peace.