Pope unveils monument to migrants, refugees
VATICAN CITY » Pope Francis has always urged compassion and charity toward the refugees of the world. But on Sunday, during a special Mass on the 105th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, he unveiled a monument to migration in St. Peter’s Square as an homage to the displaced.
The work, “Angels Unaware,” by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz, depicts 140 migrants and refugees from various historical periods traveling on a boat, and includes indigenous people, the Virgin Mary and Joseph, Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and those from war-torn countries.
It was requested by the Vatican’s Office of Migrants and Refugees and funded by the Rudolph P. Bratty Family Foundation.
Francis said the statue had been inspired by a passage in “Letter to the Hebrews,” from the New Testament: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”
The pope said Sunday he had wanted the statue in St. Peter’s Square “so that all will be reminded of the evangelical challenge of hospitality.”
He said it was “the poorest of the poor and the most disadvantaged who pay the price” of wars, injustice, economic and social imbalances, both local and global. He called on the Roman Catholic Church and the faithful to respond to the challenges of contemporary migration with four words.
“Welcome, protect, promote and integrate,” he said, adding that the church’s mission should also extend to “all those living in the existential peripheries.”
“If we put those four verbs into practice,” the pope told thousands of people, including many migrants, gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the special Mass, “we will promote the integral human development of all people.”
He said the presence of migrants and refugees, and of those considered vulnerable, offered an opportunity “to recover some of those essential dimensions of our Christian existence and our humanity that risk being overlooked in a prosperous society.” In showing concern for migrants, he said, “we also show concern” for all others.