Pope Demands No More Borders or Walls to ‘Hide Behind’
'There will no longer be any borders, barriers, or political walls,' Francis declares
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Pope Francis has called for the rejection of borders and walls in a recent interview with the BBC.
In a special audio message for the launch of the COP26 Climate Conference, the Pope said:
“Climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic have exposed our deep vulnerability and raised numerous doubts and concerns about our economic systems and the way we organize our societies."
“The most important lesson we can take from these crises is our need to build together, so that there will no longer be any borders, barriers, or political walls for us to hide behind,” he declared.
The pope claimed that both the climate crisis and the pandemic had removed humanity’s sense of security, making people feel powerless.
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“We find ourselves increasingly frail and even fearful, caught up in a succession of ‘crises’ in the areas of health care, the environment, food supplies, and the economy, to say nothing of social, humanitarian and ethical crises,” the pope said.
The Pontiff argued that all the crises are profoundly interconnected, and called for “the ability to formulate plans and put them rapidly into action, to rethink the future of the world, our common home, and to reassess our common purpose.”
He added such crises present us with the need to take “radical decisions that are not always easy,” he contended while urging his hearers not to retreat into “isolationism, protectionism, and exploitation.”
The pope also cited “scientists” who told him some time ago:
“If things continue as they are, in fifty years’ time, my baby granddaughter will have to live in an unliveable world.”
“We cannot allow this to happen!" the Pope stated.
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"It is essential that each of us be committed to this urgent change of direction, sustained by our own faith and spirituality,” the pope insisted.
“The political decision-makers who will meet at COP26 in Glasgow are urgently summoned to provide effective responses to the present ecological crisis and in this way to offer concrete hope to future generations,” Francis concluded.
He then invited a collective response to the “unprecedented threat of climate change and the degradation of our common home.”
Earlier this year, The Vatican said people should view migrants as people who have been “displaced like Jesus."
The Vatican’s office for Migrants and Refugees tweeted at the time:
“One year ends, a new one begins, let’s walk again the path made with our brothers and sisters #DisplacedlikeJesus."
