Pope Francis is often characterised as being a friend of Globalist politicians and open borders policies.
This has not occurred without merit, Francis has given this impression on many occasions, sometimes through his own actions and words and sometimes through ambiguous statements that led to misinterpretation.
Francis, lest we forget, is from Argentina and many of the discussions that have angered Europeans have been from a misunderstanding about the nature of migration into Europe.
Yet, in fairness, that understanding of the core demographic issues facing Europe and the countries where migrants are being imported from has seemed more insightful on his behalf in the past few years.
Francis has rightfully pointed out that Europe is facing a ‘demographic winter’. He has referred to Europe as an ‘elderly and haggard grandmother’. He warned that this ‘disease’ was badly affecting Europe.
He has also been strong in speaking against abortion, which kills millions of Europeans before birth each year, even referring to abortion doctors as ‘hitmen’.
The central cause for mass immigration is this, Europeans kill their babies before birth through abortion,. There is no other cause. Modern politicians see themselves as management for an economy, not of nationhood or of human beings or of culture, their chief concern is to balance the books, and with the exception of Viktor Orban in Hungary and PiS in Poland, they take the shortcut every time.
On another note, Francis has spoken recently of the need to uphold the right to not emigrate from one’s own home.
In Fratelli Tutti he states:
Sadly, some “are attracted by Western culture, sometimes with unrealistic expectations that expose them to grave disappointments. Unscrupulous traffickers, frequently linked to drug cartels or arms cartels, exploit the weakness of migrants, who too often experience violence, trafficking, psychological and physical abuse and untold sufferings on their journey”. Those who emigrate “experience separation from their place of origin, and often a cultural and religious uprooting as well. Fragmentation is also felt by the communities they leave behind, which lose their most vigorous and enterprising elements, and by families, especially when one or both of the parents migrates, leaving the children in the country of origin”. For this reason, “there is also a need to reaffirm the right not to emigrate, that is, to remain in one’s homeland”
For Francis, the communities from which these people originate are left poorer for them having left, their absence is not a welcome thing. Individuals should not be forced to leave their homes for another land, through economic necessity or war or for other reasons.
He has taken this sentiment further in light of his trip to Iraq, writing on Twitter:
Thinking of the many Iraqis who have emigrated, I would like to say to them: you have left everything, like Abraham; like him, keep the faith and hope and be weavers of friendship and of fraternity wherever you are. And if you can, return. #Iraq #GeneralAudience
This call for emigrants to go home is not easy for Iraqis who might be afraid of danger, but for both them and for Syrians (and also for Ireland’s two highest Asylum Seeker groups, Albanians and Georgians) it is a call for healing wounds by returning home where possible.
The negative effects of leaving one’s homeland and the possibility of return are areas that are not discussed in the simplistic Western Media discussions surrounding migration.
There is no doubt that Ireland, for example, has been greatly harmed over the decades by mass emigration. Young people are told in each generation to simply emigrate if they want to make an honest wage, hence they leave for the United States, Australia and other places where that opportunity is afforded to them. Meanwhile the political, spiritual and cultural life of the nation grows stale from missing the vibrancy of youth. Even in the past year, the Irish media has failed to properly address the awful occurrence of the fall in birth rates by 25% in the past 5 years and has even bemoaned the government having lost its ‘safety valve’ of forcing young people to leave their home in order to be provided with a decent opportunity at earning a fair wage.
Telling Europeans to have more babies and telling emigrants to return home, when they can, to enrich their homelands seems a pretty reasonable approach to these problems.