Francis: Today There is a Wave of Closure Towards the Foreigner, it is a Suicide

Went to the Italian page: ...He is quoted as having used the word benessere, which, yes, literally means "well-being" but evidently can also be translated "comfort" or "ease" and hence imply complacency, such as Luke 12:20 warns against. I'm thinking this is a double-entendre that didn't translate well.

Nothing double entendre about it; he meant complacency and he is scolding people for not ceding their nations to an economic invasion. Here is my translation:

«Oggi c’è un’ondata di chiusura verso lo straniero» e «ci sono tante situazioni di tratta di persone straniere»: è la denuncia che Papa Francesco ha pronunciato ricevendo i missionari scalabriniani, da sempre accanto a migranti e rifugiati, sottolineando che «il benessere è suicida»perché porta a «un inverno demografico» e alla «chiusura delle porte», e ricordando che anche l’Europa «non è nata così, ma è stata fatta da tante ondate migratorie durante i secoli».
“Today there is a rising wave of resistance towards the stranger” and “so many situations of trafficking in foreign people”—these are concerns about which Pope Francis spoke on receiving the Scalabrinians, missionaries to migrants and refugees. “Today's emphasis on societal well-being is suicidal,” he remarked, “because it leads to “demographic winter” and a “shutting out,” he said, reminding listeners that Europe “was not born, but rather made, by many waves of immigration throughout centuries.”

This pope is insane. Like most liberals (but I repeat myself), he can’t do math. Of course there have been waves of migration in the past; but they have often been the result of, or the instigator for, bloodshed. This is not an assimilable flow but an overwhelming invasion, planned and enabled by the European Union with the express purpose of destroying white European ethnicities, cultures and traditions, with the destruction of Christianity at the top of the list. Why? Because when people submit to the loving God, they become self-sufficient, civilized and liberated, caring for one another, and they don’t need as much government, nor need to pay as many taxes. The EU is a graft machine extraordinaire, as bad as our corrupt Deep State.

You're a better linguist than I. Thanks for the extended translation.

Your rendering of benessere is "societal well-being." I am guessing that you and I would agree that thinking we can provide everyone what in the US used to be called "welfare" (another translation of benessere?) is, as you suggest, madness or bad math.

That said, if the the translation were "[t]oday's emphasis on comfort is suicide," then the sense is different. Migration aside, the West's disregard for the message of Humanae Vitae is, sadly, consistent with a lifestyle of "comfort" that closes the door to new life and has led to a demographic winter. Again, I think you and I would agree that merely paying welfare to migrants wouldn't in and of itself obliterate that problem, which is quite fundamental.

Again, since I don't speak Italian, I can't speak to the sense in which the term was used in this context.

This is what the seditious Bergoglio had to say about the illegals approaching the US border:

Another phenomenon of migrants - let's think of the caravan that goes from Honduras to the United States - is to pile up . The migrant usually tries to go in groups. Sometimes it has to go alone, but it is normal to pile up, because we feel stronger in migration. And there is the community. In football there is the possibility of a 'free agent,' that can move according to the opportunities, but from you there is no possibility, the 'free agent' from you fail. Always the community. Always in the community, because your vocation is precisely for migrants who pile up. Feel migrants. Feel, yes, migrants facing needs, migrants before the Lord, migrants among you. And for this the need to pile up.

... if the the translation were "[t]oday's emphasis on comfort is suicide," then the sense is different....I can't speak to the sense in which the term was used in this context.

Nor can I, truly. I gave it my best shot, but it's been years since I was immersed. Italian translation is tricky because sometimes they use a great many words where we would use few, and the reverse is also true in other instances.

Also, when a person is speaking to the press as Francis was, he may have assumed facts not in evidence to an American translator, such as the precise nuance of benessere he was going for. The word may have been used earlier in the press conference in a specific way that he was referring back to. Or, he may have been alluding to the overall GenX and Millenial ethos of narcissim that is often cited in contemporary media; in that case, the phrase could have been "one's own well-being" instead of "societal well-being." I chose "societal" because the ethos itself is widespread and dominant, even though individuals have a variety of expressions of well-being. But I can't claim to know for sure.

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