Pope Francis Calls for Expanded and ‘Safer Routes’ for Immigrants to Travel

ROME — Pope Francis insisted Thursday that “safer routes” and expanded “channels” must be established for migrants wishing to leave their countries in search of a better life.

“All of us must strive to make the road safer, so that today’s travelers do not fall victim to bandits,” the pontiff said during a special prayer event in Saint Peter’s Square on behalf of migrants and refugees. “We need to multiply our efforts to combat the criminal networks that exploit the hopes and dreams of migrants.”

“It is likewise necessary to indicate safer routes,” he continued. “This means that efforts must be made to expand regular migration channels.”

The pope went on to assert the need to “bring demographic and economic policies into dialogue with migration policies for the sake of all those involved, without ever forgetting to put the most vulnerable at the center.”

“It is also necessary to promote a common and co-responsible approach to the governance of migration flows, which appear set to increase in the coming years,” he added.

Francis called for a moment of silence so that all the participants in the Vatican’s “Synod on Synodality” could “remember all those who did not make it, who lost their lives along the different migration routes, and those who have been exploited or enslaved.”

He painted a grim picture of the plight of migrants who suffer at the hands of people smugglers and exploiters.

How many of our brothers and sisters “are robbed, stripped and beaten along the way?” he asked. “They leave their homes deceived by unscrupulous traffickers. They are then sold like commodities.”

“They are kidnapped, imprisoned, exploited and enslaved. They are humiliated, tortured, raped,” he declared. “And so many of them die without ever reaching their destination.”

“The migration routes of our time are filled with men and women who are wounded and left half-dead, our brothers and sisters whose pain cries out before God,” he said. “Often, they are people fleeing war and terrorism, as we are witnessing, sadly, in these days.”

Pope Francis has made the issue of immigration a centerpiece of his ten-year pontificate, urging countries to open their doors to migrants as they would to Jesus.

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