Saint Joseph Catholic Church

“These legal flows of migration have always existed historically, and at certain historical moments, for reasons of fear, they are no longer considered feasible,” said Cardinal Fabio Baggio, CS, who stated that “this absolutely does not mean that the Church has favored illegal immigration.”

Cardinal Baggio added:

Today the person as subject has been lost, the migrant, and people speak only of “illegals,” and everyone knows what we are referring to. As if the only people who violate a law are migrants who enter illegally into a country.

But someone who runs a red light, is he an illegal driver? Why is only this category [migration] labeled with illegality, when there are many other forms that are far more serious? We find ourselves faced with a language that is itself an instrument, let’s say, for perpetuating fear or exacerbating fear.

“We must do everything possible to stop the aggressor,” Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said in an interview with Vatican News. “Then another time will come: that of healing the trauma and rebuilding what the war has destroyed. But that will be another story. Orate pro nobis. Pray for us.”

Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes of Mexico City added, “We are aware of the difficult times we face as a society; therefore, I offer this message to encourage us and to call on everyone to be collaborators for the common good, promoting the justice and social peace we need.”

The decision follows the exhumation of the bodies of Christians from public cemeteries in some villages in Chhattisgarh (map), a state that is 93% Hindu, 2% Muslim, and 2% Christian.

Bishop Erik Varden, OCSO, of Trondheim, Norway, is publishing his Lenten retreat conferences to the Pope and the Roman Curia: