Posted on 09/14/2015 2:29:13 PM PDT by NYer
.- In a new, wide-ranging interview Pope Francis spoke at length of the European refugee crisis – saying that incoming migrants are now filling the void left by a sterile continent that refuses to have children.
“The migrant phenomenon is a reality…when there is an empty space, people look to fill it. If a country doesn't have children, migrants come to occupy that place,” the Pope said in a recent interview with Portugal-based Radio Renascença (Renaissance).
He referred to the staggeringly low number of births in countries such as Italy, Portugal and Spain, where the current number of births falls, he said, at “almost zero percent.”
Francis said he is no stranger to the phenomenon of not wanting to have children, and that he encountered it in his own family when some years ago his Italian cousins said they preferred to travel or buy property rather than have children.
“So, if there are no children, there are open spaces,” he said. For him personally, the societal refusal to have children is part of a “culture of ‘well-being,’” in which the assurance that one’s personal needs and wants will be taken care of is emphasized to an exaggerated degree.
Published Sept. 14, the interview was conducted by Vatican journalist Aura Miguel Sept. 8, and touched on a wide variety of themes such as the current refugee crisis, youth unemployment and how often the Pope goes to confession.
In the many questions surrounding the current refugee crisis hitting Europe by the thousands each day, the Pope said that what we’re seeing is just “the tip of the iceberg.”
“We see these refugees, these poor people that are escaping from war, escaping from hunger, but that’s the tip of the iceberg,” he said. In his view, the crux of the problem is an unjust socioeconomic system that removes the human being from the center.
Today’s dominant economic system “removes the person from the center, and at the center is the god of money, it’s the god in fashion today,” the Pope said, noting that this also affects both the political and ecological systems.
No matter where the migrants come from, the criteria spurring them to move are the same, Francis continued, saying that one has to go to the causes of the problems to find solutions.
“Where the causes are hunger, bringing jobs, investments. Where the cause is war, looking for peace, the work for peace.”
One recent phenomenon that deeply pained him was the plight of the “Rohingya” people, an Indo-Aryan ethnic group largely from the Rakhine state of Burma, in west Myanmar.
Since clashes began in 2012 between the state’s Buddhist community and the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority, more than 100,000 Rohingya’s have fled Myanmar by sea, according to the U.N.
In order to escape forced segregation from the rest of the population inside rural ghettos, many of the Rohingya – who are not recognized by the government as a legitimate ethnic group or as citizens or Myanmar – have made the perilous journey at sea in hopes of evading persecution.
In May a number of Rohingya people – estimated to be in the thousands – were stranded at sea in boats with dwindling supplies while Southeastern nations such as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia refused to take them in. On Aug. 7, Pope Francis told a group of youth that this “is called killing. It’s true. If I have a conflict with you and I kill you, it's war.”
In the interview, Francis lamented how countries would allow the Rohingya to land, give them food and water, and then send them back out to sea. “They don’t welcome them,” he said, adding that today “humanity lacks the ability to welcome.”
As a grandson of Italian immigrants who came to Argentina in 1929 along with a wave of other Italian, Spanish and Portuguese migrants starting in 1884, the Pope said that “I know what immigration is.”
However, he also acknowledged that migrants bring various safety concerns with them, and noted that Rome is not “immune” to infiltration from threats such as guerilla groups active near Sicily.
But despite our concerns, Francis said that refugees still have to be welcomed because it’s commanded in the Bible, and turned to Moses' commission to his people not to “mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”
When asked about the response to his appeal during his Sept. 6 Sunday Angelus address for every parish, shrine, religious community and monastery in Europe to welcome a family of refugees has gotten, the Pope said that there have been many.
He said he specifically asked them to take in a family rather than a person because “a family gives more safety,” and the risk of “infiltrations” is lower.
Pope Francis clarified that when he asked for a family to be welcomed, he’s not necessarily asking that they be welcomed into the parish or community house, but that the parish or community finds “a place, a corner of a school to make a ‘small apartment.”
“Or, in the worst case, rent a modest apartment for the family, but that they have a ceiling, to be welcomed, and that they are integrated into the community.”
Many convents are “almost empty,” the Pope observed, and recalled that when he made a similar appeal soon after his election just over two years ago, there were only four responses, one of them being the Jesuits.
This, he said, “is serious,” and noted that the temptation of “the god of money” is also present in this situation when he hears some congregations say “No, now that this convent is empty, we’re going to make a hotel, and we can receive people, and with this we’ll sustain ourselves or earn money.”
If a community wants to do this it's fine, but “pay taxes,” he said, explaining that a religious school has the title “religious” since religious institutions are exempt from taxes, “but if it works like a hotel then pay taxes like everybody else. Otherwise the business isn't very healthy.”
Francis was also asked about the two Vatican parishes who were also asked to welcome refugee families, which, he said, have already been found thanks to Cardinal Angelo Comastri, Vicar General for the Vatican, and the papal Almoner Bishop Konrad Krajewski.
He said he didn’t know how long the families would stay, but that they would be there “until the Lord wants.”
“No one knows this, how it’s going to end, right? Anyway, I want to say that Europe became conscious, eh? And I thank them, I thank the European countries who have become conscious of this.”
If yo think open borders and unmitigated immigration is a good thing then go over to the DU were your like minded socialist friends are.
It is the foreigners who are oppressing the natives, not the other way around. Marxism has totally confused this man’s brain. This was not the Catholicism that I new when I was s teenager. What about not coveting your neighbor’s land?
I’m reminded of when Dr. Zhivago comes home from the war to find a dozen people squatting in his house, by order of the commissar of course.
Why should we, offer home to the reckless reproductive flotsam of the third world....
The Bible commands us to be fruitful and multiply. In that order.
However, if people decide to have small families, they leave the future to those who have big families.
And, no, I’m absolutely not a Catholic. My wife and I had three children. So don’t blame me.
Yep...memorable scene.
He is basically saying that he wants to be the last Pope.
He IS the last Pope, isn’t he?
But I think the “good life” is also a reason that people do not want kids as Pope Frances said, he has a cousin that does not want kids and would prefer traveling or buying property. Hedonism and materialism go hand in hand. We have seen this for about 50 years.
I’m now remembering that Frank Sinatra song “The Good Life”.
The Baby Boom ended in 1964 and the Ted Kennedy Invasion Act went into force in 1965.
Please do not insult my intelligence by saying that this was because people were not having children. In fact in 1965 there was a bump up from 1960.
I would say it goes quite the other way. When you are flooded by migrants you tend to have fewer children because there is less room for them.
How many kids did Pope Francis have? How many migrants is he personally going to claim for himself?
China and India are third world countries that are very polluted. First world countries have better technologies with more environmental protections.
this marauding group of drifters, are simply an invading army, in the of guise of Trojan horses...Rush had it right today, when he eluded to the fact that 80% of these people are military aged men, and as he added, looking for women, or words to that effect....
I’ve got to think that those who don’t want children, don’t want migrants either.
People who have small families are having children according to what they can support and take care of and they WORK.
So I do not see the logic in them supporting additional families when they are supporting their own families and ALREADY SUPPORTING AN ADDITIONAL FAMILY THROUGH TAXES.
The pope or whatever the hell he is pays no tax, doesn’t even support himself and never has and then he tries to make people who are working feel guilty if they are not supporting two other families?
The poop can practice what he preaches or shut the hell up.
And come out against homosexual marriage and strengthen the family, as opposed to making divorce easier.
And, while he's at it, not make a case for middle eastern Christians, and not the Muslims?
said the guy with NO kids...
Europe has generous welfare benefits which attracts foreigners but is also available to the natives who do not have to work. If you pay people not to work you will have a shortage of workers, hence they call in more foreign workers.
I finally agree with the Pope on something.
The West has committed suicide through refusing to have children. Sooner or later someone is going to just walk in and take it away.
Question is will Europe wake up?
What’s the proper number? Does one kid give you a pass? If someone has 14 kids, can they sell “kid credits” like carbon credits? Can you claim one of your nieces?
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