ON CHRISTMAS, POPE FRANCIS CONDEMNS WALLS & “DETAINMENT CAMPS”

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Pope Francis focused his Christmas blessing on migrants, invoking the topic of migration on numerous occasions during his brief 865-word message and taking a dig at “detention centers.”

“May the newborn Lord bring light to the people of Africa, where persistent social and political situations often force individuals to migrate, depriving them of a home and family,” the Catholic leader said to the approximately 55,000 tourists and pilgrims at Saint Peter’s Square.

The pope stated that modern migration is the result of injustice and that migrants’ aspirations for a better life are often impeded by “walls of injustice.”

Migrants “are forced to emigrate in the hope of a secure life,” he said in his Urbi et Orbi blessing.

“It is injustice that makes them cross deserts and seas that become cemeteries,” the pontiff declared, adding:

It is injustice that forces them to endure unspeakable forms of abuse, enslavement of every kind and torture in inhumane detention camps. It is injustice that turns them away from places where they might have hope for a dignified life, but instead find themselves before walls of indifference.

Then, in his closing invocation for the blessings of Christ upon “all the suffering members of our human family,” Francis once more brought up migration.

“Through our friendship, such as it is, may he draw close to the elderly and the lonely, to migrants and the marginalized,” he said.

Migration has been a common theme in the ministry and speeches of Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pontiff.

In his yearly Christmas address to the Roman Curia last Saturday, he said that no one is a “stranger” to God and labeled migrants among society’s most vulnerable and marginalized members.

The pope then called on the Church to promote the “integral development of the human person” by serving those who are “forced to emigrate, who at the present time represent a voice crying in the wilderness of our humanity.”

“The Church is thus called to remind everyone that it is not simply a matter of social or migration questions but of human persons, of our brothers and sisters who today are a symbol of all those discarded by the globalized society,” he said.

Last Thursday, Pope Francis presided over the installation in the Vatican of a migrant crucifix, which had a migrant life vest placed on the cross instead of the body of Christ. The ceremony took place after the Catholic leader had a meeting with 33 migrants from the Greek island of Lesbos.

“We are facing another death caused by injustice,” said Francis.

He continued:

Yes, because it is injustice that forces many migrants to leave their lands. It is injustice that forces them to cross deserts and suffer abuse and torture in detention camps. It is injustice that rejects them and makes them die at sea.

I decided to exhibit this life jacket, ‘crucified’ on this cross, to remind us that we must keep our eyes open, keep our hearts open, to remind everyone of the absolute commitment to save every human life, a moral duty that unites believers and non-believers.

He concluded his remarks by thanking “all those who have decided not to remain indifferent and do their utmost to help the victim, without asking too many questions.... It is not by blocking their boats that the problem is solved.”

Earlier this month, the pope compared U.S. President Donald Trump to Herod, the wicked biblical king who ordered the slaughter of infants in and around Bethlehem in an effort to kill the newborn Jesus.

“I must admit that I am shocked by some of the narratives I hear in Europe about borders. Populism is gaining strength. In other parts there are walls that even separate children from parents. Herod comes to mind.”

On other occasions, the pontiff has criticized President Trump in comments about “builders of walls” who “become prisoners” of their own walls and are “not Christian.”

In response to the pope’s remarks during the 2016 election, then-candidate Trump responded that “for a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful.”

The pope has also been a vocal advocate for taking action against so-called climate change and has spoken out against capitalism and the free market, calling “trickle-down theories” a “crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.”