By CNS and staff reporters
POPE Francis has greeted refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos, saying the world needs to fear them less and help them more.
Lesbos has become a symbol of Europe’s refugee crisis, and yesterday Francis returned after five years to chide world leaders for their “cynical disregard” of the plight of migrants.
“Stop ignoring reality, stop constantly shifting responsibility, stop passing off the issue of migration to others, as if it mattered to no one and was only a pointless burden to be shouldered by somebody else,” Francis pleaded, as he spoke against a backdrop of refugee shelters along the shores of the Aegean Sea.
Over the last decade, hundreds of thousands of refugees escaping violence across the Middle East have passed through Lesbos, many seeking permanent relocation in Europe.
When Francis first visited in April 2016 – and memorably brought 12 refugees to the Vatican – 1.3 million people sought asylum in Europe that year.
“History teaches us that narrow self-interest and nationalism lead to disastrous consequences,” he said during his two-hours on the island.
“I am here once again, to meet you and to assure you of my closeness.
“I am here to see your faces and look into your eyes. Eyes full of fear and expectancy, eyes that have seen violence and poverty, eyes streaked by too many tears.
Francis said the global vaccination campaign and the fight against climate change showed that progress could be made on big global issues.
“All this seems to be terribly absent when it comes to migration,” he said. “Yet human lives, real people, are at stake!”
At the time of his last visit, more than 5000 migrants had died that year at sea as they attempted to cross from mainland Turkey to Greece.
“Let us stop this shipwreck of civilisation,” the Pope urged.
“The Mediterranean, which for millennia has brought different peoples and distant lands together, is now becoming a grim cemetery without tombstones.
“This great basin of water, the cradle of so many civilisations, now looks like a mirror of death.”
“Shake us from an individualism that excludes others, to awaken hearts that are deaf to the needs of our neighbours,” Francis said as he concluded a rousing address meant to stir the consciences of global leaders and Catholics alike.
“I ask every man and woman, all of us, to overcome the paralysis of fear, the indifference that kills, the cynical disregard that nonchalantly condemns to death those on the fringes.”
Earlier on his visit to Greece, Pope Francis met with Archbishop Ieronymos, the spiritual leader of the majority of Greek Christians.
Pope Francis apologised to members of the Orthodox Church of Greece for the ways Catholics over the centuries had offended them, and he told Catholic leaders that they must embrace their minority status with humility.
“Here, today, I feel the need to ask anew for the forgiveness of God and of our brothers and sisters for the mistakes committed by many Catholics,” Pope Francis told Archbishop Ieronymos II.
While Catholics and Orthodox have the same roots in the preaching of St. Paul and the teaching of the early church theologians and first ecumenical councils, “tragically, in later times we grew apart,” the pope said.
“Worldly concerns poisoned us, weeds of suspicion increased our distance and we ceased to nurture communion.
“Shamefully – I acknowledge this for the Catholic Church – actions and decisions that had little or nothing to do with Jesus and the Gospel – but were instead marked by a thirst for advantage and power – gravely weakened our communion.”
Pope Francis acknowledged there are some Christians who are not thrilled about ecumenism and its efforts to pray and work for the restoration of Christian unity and, in fact, as the pope arrived at the archbishop’s residence, an elderly Orthodox priest repeatedly shouted, “Pope, you’re a heretic.”
But convinced that communion is the path willed by Jesus who prayed his followers would be one, the pope told the Orthodox archbishop: “Let us fearlessly help one another to worship God and to serve our neighbor, without proselytism and in full respect for the freedom of others.”
To those who would object that evangelization is more central to the church’s mission than ecumenism is, the pope replied, “How can we testify before the world to the harmony of the Gospel, if we Christians remain separated? How can we proclaim the love of Christ who gathers the nations, if we ourselves are not united?”
And while the Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue continues to discuss differences between the churches, their faithful have much they can and must do together, the pope said.
