Pope Makes Migrant Visit, Returns to Rome With Three Families

Pontiff visits Greek island that has become the focal point of Europe’s hardened stance toward migrants.

Pope Francis traveled to the front lines of the migration crisis Saturday, visiting a Greek island that has become the focal point of Europe’s hardened stance toward the new arrivals—then returning to the Vatican with three Syrian families.

In a visit to the Greek island of Lesbos, the pope challenged leaders to respond to migrants “in a way worthy of our common humanity” and pointedly called for Europe to remember its roots as “the homeland of human rights.”

The pontiff also made a provocative gesture by returning to Rome with a group of Syrians who are among the 50,000 stranded in Greece as a result of the decision by many EU member states to bar new arrivals.

“I want to tell you that you are not alone,” he told refugees and migrants held at a detention center on Lesbos. “We hope the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need.”

The pope spoke during a five-hour visit to Lesbos, the island that has seen about 500,000 migrants and refugees—mostly Syrian refugees—arrive since last summer. Pope Francis, who has forcefully defended the rights of refugees and migrants, decided to make the visit soon after the European Union struck a new policy of deporting migrants who arrive in Greece to neighboring Turkey, a position the Vatican has harshly criticized.

“This is a trip marked by sadness,” the pope told reporters on the morning flight from Rome. “We are going to witness the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since the Second World War.”

The pope visited the center with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople—the leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians — and Archbishop Ieronymos of Greece, leader of Greece’s Orthodox community.

During their visit, people chanted “freedom” in English and Arabic. Moria holds more than 3,000 migrants behind a three-tiered, barbed wire fence. Amnesty International—one of a number of aid organizations to have withdrawn from the migrant reception system in Greece in protest of the EU-Turkey accord—has decried conditions inside Moria. Ahead of the papal visit, local authorities whitewashed the walls of the camp and cleaned up its surrounding area.

“Europe is the homeland of human rights, and whoever sets foot on European soil ought to sense this,” he said. “Humanity [should] build bridges and recoils from the idea of putting up walls.”

Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Ieronymos used especially strong language to criticize European immigration policies. “Those who are afraid of you do not see your faces,” Patriarch Bartholomew told the detainees. “The world will be judged by the way it has treated you.”

The surprise announcement that the pope would return to Rome with three Syrian families—including a mother and her handicapped child and others with health problems—appears aimed at pricking Europe’s conscience. Merely by accepting a dozen refugees, the Vatican has already taken in more migrants than all but seven of the E.U.’s 28 member states under the EU’s relocation program launched last year which saw only hundreds resettled.

The 12 people, including six children, were among the 50,000 trapped in Greece because of the border closings. The families are Syrians and Muslims and hail from Damascus or Deir Azzor, an area occupied by Islamic State, and saw their homes bombed in the war, said a Vatican statement. The Vatican will shelter and support the refugees.

On his flight back to Rome Saturday afternoon, the pope said that religion had not been a factor in the refugees’ selection. Some Christian families had also been considered, he said, but their “paperwork was not in order” so they had been unable to be processed as refugees.

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