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EXCERPT:
When Pope Leo XIV last week completed his seven-day trip to Spain by visiting the Canary Islands, where thousands of migrants have died attempting to reach Europe, one would expect the usual boilerplate language typical of the Catholic hierarchy of late. This would include that Western nations need to treat immigrants with respect and dignity (hint: unreservedly welcoming them in and putting them on the fast track to citizenship) and that immigrants have the right to leave their nations of origin. There was certainly some of that, similar to his predecessor, Francis.
But what was surprisingly welcome was that the pope tempered that language with exhortations and warnings to those same migrants, a message that has been often frustratingly absent from the Catholic Church’s public commentary regarding one of the greatest crises facing the West. It’s language that many of the Catholic faithful — and the broader world that, to various degrees, still looks to the papacy as a moral compass — desperately yearned to hear, especially given that Catholic teaching is actually quite nuanced and moderate on the topic of immigration and borders. One hopes the rest of the Catholic hierarchy were paying attention.