Pope Francis’ visit to the United States could not have come at a better time for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, who are facing a new onslaught from some Republican Presidential candidates led by Donald Trump.
The presence of the 78-year-old Pope, who represents 1.2 billion Catholics of the world, also had a soothing effect on a large number of Muslim Americans, who have been taken aback by a sudden outburst of anti-Islam rhetoric from some GOP politicians and commentators.
Pope’s six-day-three-state visit would certainly be a boost for President Obama who is both an ardent supporter of immigrants and, like Francis, a strong advocate of inter-faith harmony.
“Our presidential candidates have been using immigrants as a wedge issue…It’s our hope that the visit of Pope Francis will change this narrative,” Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski was quoted as saying in an AP report.
While the Pontiff’s trip is unlikely to break the logjam over immigration reforms immediately, Obama has so passionately pursued and which GOP has so vehemently opposed – Francis did what each and every immigrant had expected him to do — lend his support to them.
Pope Francis with U.S. President Barack Obama, 27 March 2014 Photo: Wikimedia
First at the White House and then from the podium of Congress, Francis’ message to the American leaders was loud and clear – shun political differences and embrace immigrants as your own.
“Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation,” Francis said in his Sept. 24 speech to lawmakers dotted with the philosophy of American icons such President Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.
At the White House, a day earlier, Francis underscored the role of immigrants in building the great American nation. “As a son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families.”
Immigration has been a divisive issue and as election season heats up, many of the conservatives seem to be averse to “policy of mercy”.
Trump’s anti-immigrant blitzkrieg he unleashed on the illegal immigrants from Mexico, and later extended to embrace all, has dragged into a fray many of his party rivals such as Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina.
The talk on immigration has ranged from building border walls to blocking crossover from Mexico to deporting those overstaying and cracking down on “Chinese birth tourism”, to a cutback in legal immigrants.
Amidst ongoing Syrian humanitarian catastrophe, Francis tried to draw attention to anguish and agony being experienced by those who were ousted from their homes and forced to take shelter in alien lands around the world. Pope had a first-hand knowledge this week to see from close pain and sufferings of those who left their home to find a safer future for their families.
Sharing his feelings from a meeting with a Syrian family, which came to see him off before he took off for Cuba and the United States, he told reporters on the plane that he “could see the pain in all of this in their faces”.
Many Muslim countries in the region have also failed to see the pain Pope is alluding to and which has provided excuses, though utterly inexcusable, to some who are now categorizing displaced persons from Syria as Christian and Muslim refugees. Slovakia has said it would grant asylum only to Christian, saying there are no mosques in Slovakia and which will make integration of Muslims into the society difficult.
Francis doesn’t buy such arguments of isolation and his words should discourage anti-Muslim rhetoric among White House contenders.
Speaking to Congress leaders, Francis rejected such extremism while painting a gloomy picture of the present-day world mired in violent conflict and inflicted by brutal atrocities committed in the name of religion.
“We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism.”
Instead, he called for renewing the “spirit of cooperation which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States.”
