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Pope Francis has cited the Gospel while calling for migrants to be “welcomed, encouraged and integrated” as Europe and the United States struggle to cater to unprecedented levels of global mass migration.

The pontiff, a steadfast advocate for asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants, said that many migrants are faced with the “drama of forced migration” and make treacherous journeys by sea in search of better lives which can sometimes lead to tragedy. 

Speaking to an Italian pro-immigrant nonprofit called “ResQ” on Wednesday, he said needy migrants are often “exploited, rejected, abused and reduced to slavery” while traveling to the unknown.

POPE FRANCIS SAYS INTENTIONALLY ALLOWING MIGRANTS TO DIE IS A ‘GRAVE SIN’

He praised groups like ResQ which seeks to protect desperate migrants and refugees in danger in the Mediterranean Sea. The group has its own 128-foot long rescue boat that helps save migrants at sea. 

“So we welcome the action of those who do not just observe things, criticizing from afar, but who get involved, offering some of their time, their ingenuity and their resources to alleviate the suffering of migrants, to save them, welcome them and integrate them,” Pope Francis said. 

“The migrant must be welcomed, accompanied, encouraged and integrated. This generosity, this industriousness is in harmony with the Gospel, which invites us to do good to everyone, and in particular the last, the poorest, the most abandoned, the sick, people in danger.”

The crisis has deeply divided opinions in the West as residents and governments often grapple with the cost of housing and feeding migrants against humanitarian concerns. For instance, New York City spent $4.88 billion in the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years combined providing shelter, food and other services to migrants.

“Faced with the vastness and complexity of the migratory phenomenon, the civil authorities do not always succeed in fully meeting their responsibilities,” the Pope added.  

ICE NON-DETAINED DOCKET EXPLODES TO 7.4M CASES

Pope Francis speaking about migrants on Wednesday.  (AP)

“Indeed, the rescue of those in danger of sinking in miserable vessels… is a very necessary task,” the Pope said. “The action pursued by your organization aims to save lives: the lives of people fleeing from places where serious conflicts rage, often triggering humanitarian crises and also involving the violation of fundamental human rights.”

“Dear friends, keep going forward! May Mary, help[er] of migrants, assist you in your work. I bless you and I accompany you with prayer.”

It is difficult to get an exact number of the number of migrants who have left their countries of origin throughout the crisis due to a lack of comparable data in many regions in the world. The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates a record 6.5 million migrant immigrants moved to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in 2023, a jump of 10% compared to 2022.

Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed 8 million people, a recent New York Times report confirmed, citing Congressional Budget Office data. The crisis has squeezed federal, state and local finances. 

It’s not the first time the pope has called on countries to open their borders to migrants. 

Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 7, 2023, in Lukeville, Arizona.  (John Moore/Getty Images)

At a gathering in the Vatican last year, he praised an initiative that created so-called “humanitarian corridors,” for refugees to travel into Europe safely.  

“Safe, orderly, regular and sustainable migration is in the interest of all countries,” Pope Francis said. 

The Sant’Egidio Catholic charity, the Federation of Evangelical Churches and the Waldensian Church spearheaded the ecumenical humanitarian transfer initiative in Italy, which has brought more than 6,000 people to Europe from 2016 to 2023. 

Under the program, aid workers identify asylum candidates in refugee camps and process initial paperwork to bring them into Italy on humanitarian grounds. Once they arrive, they are then provided with assistance to settle and apply for asylum.

The Catholic Church teaches that secular governments have two obligations to balance when dealing with immigration and outsiders seeking refugee status within their borders.

These duties are outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the definitive document outlining the church’s doctrines on theological and social issues.

The first duty is to “welcome the foreigner out of charity and respect for the human person,” due to the fact that human beings “have the right to immigrate and thus government must accommodate this right to the greatest extent possible, especially financially blessed nations.”

The second duty, based on secular governments’ obligation to care for their citizens and maintain a healthy society, is “to secure one’s border and enforce the law for the sake of the common good.” 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. intelligence assessment has concluded that Russia may use its lethal new intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine again in “coming days,” a U.S. official said Wednesday.

The experimental Oreshnik missile is seen by U.S. officials more as an attempt at intimidation than a game-changer on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.

The official said Russia has only a handful of the missiles and that they carry a smaller warhead than other missiles that Russia has regularly launched at Ukraine.

Russia first fired the the weapon in a Nov. 21 missile attack against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Surveillance camera video of the strike showed huge fireballs piercing the darkness and slammed into the ground at astonishing speed.

Within hours of the attack on the military facility, Russian President Vladimir Putin took the rare step of speaking on national TV to boast about the new, hypersonic missile. He warned the West that its next use could be against Ukraine’s NATO allies who allowed Kyiv to use their longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia.

The attack came two days after Putin signed a revised version of Russia’s nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons. The doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.

That strike also came soon after President Joe Biden agreed to loosened restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American made longer-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.

“We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities,” Putin said at the time.

The Pentagon said the Oreshnik was an experimental type of intermediate-range ballistic missile, or IRBM, based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. The attack marked the first time such a weapon was used in a war.

Intermediate-range missiles can fly between 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles). Such weapons were banned under a Soviet-era treaty that Washington and Moscow abandoned in 2019.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is pushing Putin to act to reach an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine, describing it as part of his active efforts as president-elect to end the war.

“Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness,” Trump wrote on social media last weekend, referring to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.