Pope Leo praises migrants to Europe days after gruesome Belfast attack

PORT OF ARGUINEGUIN, Spain (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV, in remarks on Thursday, praised migrants to Europe, just days after a migrant from Muslim-majority Sudan attacked and attempted to behead a man in Northern Ireland.

In his June 11 speech to migrant humanitarian workers, Pope Leo called on European nations to respect the “human dignity” of migrants and said that helping migrants must not be a “secondary issue” for the Church.

The American pontiff, who has downplayed illegal immigration and the impact of mass migration on native populations since the start of his pontificate, notably omitted any mention of the gruesome attack and attempted beheading of a 40-year-old man by a Sudanese immigrant on a visa just two days earlier or any of the recent attacks perpetrated by migrants across Europe.

“Dear migrants: Before I say any more words to you, I want to bow before your dignity. You are not numbers, nor files! You are people with a family and a home you left behind, with dreams that no one has the right to despise,” Leo said. “But I also want to tell you that your life must be protected. Do not hand over your existence to those who haggle over it. Don’t believe anyone who promises easy havens, in exchange for your body, money, silence, or freedom. Those false promises are ‘siren songs,’ they are industries of death.”

“Your drama must become an examination of conscience: for the nations of origin, which must create conditions of peace, justice and development; for the transit nations, called upon to protect and not to leave the weak in the hands of criminal networks; for Europe, which cannot proclaim human dignity and get used to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic being gravestones without gravestones; for the international community, call for effective and persevering cooperation,” Leo continued.

“The Church must also allow itself to be questioned. The reception of migrants cannot be anything secondary, nor can it be delegated only to a few volunteers. We kneel before the altar to worship Christ present in the Eucharist, from whom we receive the strength and motivation to live charity: for this reason we cannot then ‘pass over’ before cayucas and pateras, since from prayer every service flows and to it all commitment returns.”

This story is developing…