Pope Francis addresses Orthodox bishops in the Orthodox Cathedral in Nicosia, Cyprus, Dec. 3, 2021. / Vatican Media.
Rome Newsroom, Dec 3, 2021 / 01:15 am (CNA).
In a meeting with Orthodox bishops in Cyprus on Friday, Pope Francis expressed the… […]
Pope Francis addresses the authorities, civil society, and diplomatic corps at the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, Cyprus, Dec. 2, 2021. / Screenshot from Vatican News YouTube channel.
Nicosia, Cyprus, Dec 2, 2021 / 10:20 am (CNA).
Pope Francis… […]
Pope Francis greets a migrant at a welcoming hub near Cesena, Italy on Oct. 1, 2017. / L’Osservatore Romano.
Vatican City, Nov 29, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis could reportedly help to bring up to 50 migrants to Italy as part of his trip to Cyprus and Greece this week.
Cypriot government spokesman Marios Pelekanos said that the Vatican wanted to arrange the transfer of migrants currently in Cyprus to Rome, Reuters reported on Nov. 26.
“This is a tangible expression of solidarity by the head of the Roman Catholic Church to people in need, affirming that the Vatican recognizes the problem that the Republic of Cyprus faces today because of the increased migratory flows and the need for a fair distribution among EU member states,” Pelekanos said, according to Reuters.
Pope Francis will depart for the Mediterranean island of Cyprus this Thursday for a five-day visit that will also take him to Greece. The trip is expected to highlight the plight of migrants seeking to enter Europe, mainly from the Middle East and Africa.
The last time that Pope Francis visited Greece, in 2016, he brought three Syrian refugee families from the Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesbos back with him to Rome.
Among the refugees relocated with the pope’s help was Majid Alshakarji, who escaped the Syrian civil war at the age of 15.
Five years later, Alshakarji is now studying at a university in Rome to become a dentist and volunteers with the Catholic Community of Sant’Egidio, helping to welcome new refugees to Italy.
“We have been allowed to have a new life in a new country … It is a beautiful experience,” he told CNA in 2020.
Sant’Egidio helped to organize the arrival of 70 Syrian refugees in Rome on Nov. 29.
The refugees, who had been living in refugee camps in Lebanon, came to Italy through the humanitarian corridors promoted by the Catholic movement in coordination with the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy and the Italian government.
Pope Francis has repeatedly urged governments not to “lose sight of the human face of migration.”
Most recently, in a message on Nov. 29 marking the 70th anniversary of the International Organization for Migration, the pope decried the “double standard” that places economic interests over “the needs and dignity of the human person.”
“On the one hand, in the markets of upper-middle-income countries, migrant labor is in high demand and welcomed as a way to compensate for the lack of it. On the other, migrants are generally rejected and subject to resentful attitudes by many of their host communities,” he said.
“This tendency was particularly evident during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when many of the ‘essential’ workers were migrants, but they were not granted the benefits of the COVID-19 economic aid programs or even access to basic health care and immunization,” the pope added.
The pope’s message to the U.N. organization was read by Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a video message.
Pope Francis underlined that “we must never forget that these are not statistics, but real people whose lives are at stake.”
“Rooted in its centuries-long experience, the Catholic Church and its institutions will continue their mission of welcoming, protecting, promoting, and integrating people on the move,” he said.
Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Leronymos look at the sea from Lesbos on April 16, 2016. / L’Osservatore Romano.
Vatican City, Nov 5, 2021 / 06:40 am (CNA).
The Vatican officially announced on Friday that Pope Francis will travel to Cyprus and Greece on Dec. 2-6.
The four-day trip to the two Mediterranean countries will include stops in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, Athens, the Greek capital, and the Greek island of Lesbos.
The pope will visit Cyprus on Dec. 2-4 before flying to Athens on Dec. 4 and Lesbos on Dec. 5.
It will be Pope Francis’ second trip to Lesbos, also known as Lesvos, an island that is home to the infamous Moria refugee camp that was damaged in a fire last year.
The pope made a daylong visit in 2016 together with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world’s Eastern Orthodox Christians, to draw attention to the plight of migrants on the island.
The logo for the pope’s apostolic journey to Greece is “a ship traversing the troubled waters of our world, with the cross of Christ as its mast and its sails driven by the wind of the Holy Spirit,” a statement released by the Vatican on Nov. 5 said.
“As Greece feels the effects of the pandemic and the recent financial crisis, the motto expresses the hope that the Pope’s visit will bring a ray of light for the future of Greece, a country of deeply rooted faith and an illustrious past,” the Vatican statement said.
Pope Francis will be the second pope to visit Cyprus after Benedict XVI traveled to the Mediterranean island in 2010.
The official theme of the pope’s trip to Cyprus is “Comforting each other in faith”. It was inspired by the name of the Apostle Barnabas, which can mean son of consolation, according to the Vatican.
Both Cyprus and Greece have populations that are majority Greek Orthodox. Around 72% of people in Cyprus are Christians and 25% of the population is Muslim, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Mediterranean countries are also linked as St. Paul traveled to both places. The Acts of the Apostles records that St. Paul stopped in Cyprus and converted the Roman Proconsul Sergius Paulus to Christianity. The Apostle also famously preached on the streets of Athens.
Today, Cyprus has about 11,000 Catholics, according to its national statistical service, and Greece is home to about 50,000 Catholics (0.5% of the population).
The apostolic journey will be the pope’s third trip since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. His previous trips were to Iraq in March and Hungary and Slovakia in September.
The 84-year-old pope, who underwent colon surgery in July, has expressed his desire to travel to Canada, Congo, Hungary, Papua New Guinea, and East Timor in the coming year.
© Catholic World Report