Borders can become windows,
Pope Francis told participants in the "Snapshots from the
borders" migrant project that sees the Sicilian island of
Lampedusa on the front line Thursday.
"Borders, which have always been considered divisive barriers,
may on the other hand become 'windows', spaces of mutual
knowledge, reciprocal enrichment, and communion in diversity,"
he told the participants at an audience in the Vatican.
"They may become places in which models are tried to overcome
the difficulties that the new arrivals entail for the native
communities".
Francis has often spoke out on the need to save as many migrants
as possible.
He made a landmark address on Lampedusa on July 8, 2013 after a
migrant boat went down drowning scores of people seeking a
better life.
It was his first trip outside Rome since his election earlier
that year.
During his historic visit, Pope Francis prayed for the numerous
people who drowned seeking a better life in Europe.
He mourned the dead by throwing a wreath of flowers into the
sea, and celebrated an open-air Mass.
Migrant arrivals to Italy are up this year.
Amid COVID fears, hundreds of them have been moved from Sicilian
reception and holding centres to four big quarantine ships off
the coast of the Italian island.
Former interior minister Matteo Salvini, of the anti-migrant
League party, took credit for lower migrant arrivals last year
after operating a closed ports policy for NGO rescue ships, for
which he faces prosecution.
Salvini has slammed the government's new migrant policy on the
stump for elections in seven Italian regions including Veneto,
Liguria, Tuscany, Marche, Campania, Puglia and Val d'Aosta on
September 20-21.
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