Pope Leo XIV prevented the “stigma of discrimination” of immigrants and called to promote a new culture of fraternity “beyond stereotypes and prejudices.”
“Brothers and sisters, those boats that expect to see a safe port in which to stop and those eyes full of anguish and hope that seek a firm land to reach, cannot and should not find the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination,” said the Holy Father.
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The Pontiff made these reflections during the Mass he presided this Sunday in the Plaza de San Pedro on the occasion of the jubilee of the missionary world and the jubilee of migrants, two central moments of the Holy Year 2025, which have been held on October 4 and 5.
The Pope stressed the “drama” of immigrants fleeing “of violence” and highlighted the “suffering that accompanies them, the fear of not achieving it, the risk of dangerous journeys along the coast of the sea and their cry of pain and despair.”
“I think in a particular way of the migrant brothers, who have had to leave their land, often leaving their loved ones, crossing the nights of fear and loneliness, suffering in their own skin discrimination and violence,” he explained.
Do not take refuge in the comfort of individualism
During his homily he asked Catholics not to take refuge in the comfort of “individualism” and, on the other hand, look “in the face of those who arrive from distant lands and wounds” to “open their arms and heart”, “welcome them as brothers” and “be for them a presence of consolation and hope.”
After praising the work of so many believers and people of good will “who work at the service of migrants” explained that the Holy Spirit commands to continue the work of Christ “in the peripheries of the world, sometimes marked by war, injustice and suffering.”
Thus, he assured that the awareness of the missionary vocation is born from the desire to bring the joy and consolation of the Gospel “especially those who live a difficult and injured story.”
Given these dark scenarios, the Holy Father continued, again the cry that so many times in history has risen to God: “Lord, why don’t you intervene? Why do you seem absent? This cry of pain is a form of prayer that permeates all writing.”
Thus, he cited the words that Pope Benedict XVI pronounced during his historic visit to the Nazi concentration field of Auschwitz in 2011 and pointed out that the strength of God’s love “opens paths of salvation.”
“Faith transforms our existence until an instrument of salvation”
“There is a life, therefore, a new possibility of life and salvation that comes from faith, because faith not only helps us to resist evil persevering in good, but also transforms our existence until an instrument of salvation that God continues to make in the world,” he said.
The celebration brought together thousands of faithful around the world, including lay and religious missionaries from a hundred countries, as well as communities of immigrants residing in Europe.
In his homily, the Pontiff wanted to unite the two faces of the Church on exit – that of the missionary and that of the migrant -, remembering that both share the faith that walks, which comes out of itself. Especially addressing the participants of the jubilee of the missionary world and the jubilee of migrants,
Leo XIV said: “He affected my blessing to the local clergy of the private churches, to the missionary missionaries, to those who are in vocational discernment.”
And then he went to the emigrants and said: “They are always welcome.” Leo XIV said that faith is a “meek force” that “is not imposed with the means of power and extraordinary ways.”
In this sense, he stressed that God’s salvation is fulfilled “when we commit ourselves in the first person and take over, with the compassion of the Gospel, of the suffering of others.”
“It is a salvation that makes its way, in a silent and apparently ineffective way, in gestures and in everyday words, which are like the small seed that Jesus speaks of; it is a salvation that slowly grows when we become useless servants, that is, when we put ourselves at the service of the Gospel and the brothers not to seek our interests, but only to bring to the world the love of the Lord,” he insisted.
New missionary era in the Catholic Church
Leo XIV indicated that this is the trust with which Catholics must renew “the fire of the missionary vocation” while announced “a new missionary era” in the history of the Church.
Thus he assured that the mission is no longer based on “leaving”, but rather on the act “remain to announce Christ through the reception, compassion and solidarity.”
“If for a long period we have associated the mission with the” leaving “, going to distant lands that had not known the Gospel or were in poverty situations, today the borders of the mission are no longer the geographical ones, because it is poverty, suffering and desire for greater hope that comes towards us,” he said.
All this requires, according to the Pontiff, two great missionary commitments: missionary cooperation and missionary vocation. First, the Holy Father urged to promote a renewed “missionary cooperation” between the churches which will lead to a “more open Christianity.”
“In the communities of ancient Christian tradition such as Western, the presence of many brothers and sisters in the south of the world must be welcomed as an opportunity, for an exchange that renews the face of the Church and raises a more open, more lively and more dynamic Christianity,” he said.
At the same time, he assured that each missionary who starts for other lands is called to “inhabit the cultures he finds with sacred respect, directing to good everything that finds good and noble, and taking them the prophecy of the Gospel.”
Provide missionary desire especially in young people
He also recalled the beauty and importance of the “missionary vocations” and – by going in particular to the European Church – indicated that today “a new missionary impulse, of the laity, religious and priests who offer their service in the mission lands, of new vocational proposals and experience capable of raising this desire, especially in young people.”
At the same time he considered that the communities of the south of the world “are called to discern with attention the vocational motivations of those who want to be a missionary or missionary.”
The jubilee of the missionary world has gathered in Rome the lay and religious missionaries from a hundred countries, together with representatives of congregations, organizations and institutions dedicated to evangelization.
Priests have also participated the gift of faith temporarily sent to the mission by his bishops. The jubilee of the migrants, which has taken place in the same framework, has emphasized the reception, fraternity and hope of those who have had to leave their land.
Victoria Cardiel
Victoria Cardiel is a journalist specialized in social and religious information issues. Since 2013, he has covered all the news of the Vatican for various media, such as the Spanish news agency Europa Press, or the weekly of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Alfa and Omega.