Vatican City, 14 November 2015 (VIS) –
This morning in the Clementine Hall Pope Francis received 150 members
of the Jesuit Refugee Service, the international organisation founded
35 years ago by Fr. Pedro Arrupe and currently active in more than 45
nations, whose mission is to accompany, assist and defend the rights
of refugees and displaced persons.
Father Arrupe, the Pope recalled during
the audience, initiated the service after witnessing the plight of
the South-Vietnamese boat people, exposed to pirate attacks and
storms in the South China Sea. The then Superior of the Jesuits, who
had lived through the atomic bomb explosion at Hiroshima, realised
the scope of the tragic exodus of refugees and saw it as a challenge
the Jesuits could not ignore if they were to remain faithful to their
vocation. He wanted the Jesuit Refugee Service “to meet both the
human and the spiritual needs of refugees, not only their immediate
need of food and shelter, but also their need to see their human
dignity respected, to be listened to and comforted”.
The Holy Father referred to the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' estimate that there are
almost sixty million refugees worldwide, the highest number since the
Second World War, and noted that the Jesuit Refugee Service is active
in areas of greatest need, in conflict and post-conflict zones, such
as Syria, Afghanistan, the Central African Republic and the eastern
part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where they accept men and
women of different religious beliefs who share their mission.
“The Jesuit Refugee Service works to
offer hope and prospects to refugees, mainly through the educational
services you provide, which reach large numbers of people and is of
particular importance”, said Francis, emphasising that “offering
an education is about much more than dispensing concepts. It is
something which provides refugees with the wherewithal to progress
beyond survival, to keep alive the flame of hope, to believe in the
future and to make plans. To give a child a place in school is the
finest gift you can give. All your projects have this ultimate aim:
to help refugees to grow in self-confidence, to realise their highest
inherent potential and to be able to defend their rights as
individuals and communities”.
“For children forced to emigrate,
schools are places of freedom. In the classroom, they are cared for
and protected by their teachers. Sadly, we know that even schools are
not spared from attacks instigated by those who sow violence. Yet
they are places of sharing, together with children of other cultural,
ethnic and religious backgrounds; places which follow a set pace and
a reassuring discipline, places in which children can once more feel
'normal' and where parents can be happy to send them”.
However, “all too many refugee
children and young people do not receive a quality education. Access
to education is limited, especially for girls and in the case of
secondary schools”. For this reason, during the upcoming Jubilee
Year of Mercy, the Service has set the goal of helping another
100,000 young refugees to receive schooling, via a “Global
Education” initiative entitled “Mercy in Motion”, with the
collaboration of a large group of supporters and benefactors.
Francis invited those present, as they
persevere in their work of providing education for refugees, to
“think of the Holy Family, Our Lady, Saint Joseph, and the Child
Jesus, who fled to Egypt to escape violence and to find refuge among
strangers”, and to Jesus' words: “Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy”.
“And I cannot end this meeting …
without presenting to you an icon: that 'swan song' of Fr. Arrupe,
precisely in a centre for refugees. He asked us to pray, not to
forget prayer. It was he himself who, with this advice and with his
presence there, in that centre for refugees in Asia, did not know
that he was bidding farewell: they were his last words, his final
gesture. It was his final legacy to the Society. Upon arriving in
Rome, he was afflicted by a stroke that caused him to suffer for many
years. May this image accompany you: the image of a good man, not
only the creator of this service, but also one to whom God gave the
joy of giving his last farewell in a centre for refugees”.
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