Does the Vatican see the face of Christ in the old women raped, even to death, by asylum seekers? Does it see the face of Christ in the girls sex-trafficked by Pakistani migrants and descendants of these migrants in Britain? Does it see the face of Christ in the English mum who can no longer let her daughter walk alone to the corner market, and in European peoples who are now afraid to go out of their homes at night for fear of suffering migrant crime?
Yesterday Pope Leo issued an apostolic exhortation, titled Dilexi te (“I Have Loved You”), which is mostly about telling Catholics to be kind to the poor. Nothing new or objectionable about that. Then there is this paragraph about migrants:
75. The Church’s tradition of working for and with migrants continues, and today this service is expressed in initiatives such as refugee reception centers, border missions and the efforts of Caritas Internationalis and other institutions. Contemporary teaching clearly reaffirms this commitment. Pope Francis has recalled that the Church’s mission to migrants and refugees is even broader, insisting that “our response to the challenges posed by contemporary migration can be summed up in four verbs: welcome, protect, promote and integrate. Yet these verbs do not apply only to migrants and refugees. They describe the Church’s mission to all those living in the existential peripheries, who need to be welcomed, protected, promoted and integrated.” He also said: “Every human being is a child of God! He or she bears the image of Christ! We ourselves need to see, and then to enable others to see, that migrants and refugees do not only represent a problem to be solved, but are brothers and sisters to be welcomed, respected and loved. They are an occasion that Providence gives us to help build a more just society, a more perfect democracy, a more united country, a more fraternal world and a more open and evangelical Christian community.” The Church, like a mother, accompanies those who are walking. Where the world sees threats, she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges. She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community.
Hmm. Are these the faces of Christ?
These are the two Muslim men — one from Algeria, one born in France as the son of migrants — from their video pledging loyalty to ISIS. This is what they did in 2016:
After entering the church armed with knives, Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean subjected Father Jacques Hamel, three nuns and two lay people to an anti-Christian harangue, shouting “Vous, les chrétiens, vous nous supprimez!” [You, the Christians, we will do away with you!]. They then forced Father Hamel to his knees before the altar and cut his throat while yelling “Allahu akbar!”
As they approached the 85-year-old priest while he said mass, Father Hamel said, “Go away, Satan.” Then they butchered him at the altar.
Continue reading at Rod Dreher’s Diary