Don’t treat asylum-seekers with prejudice asks the Vatican at UN

Nov 4, 2003 / 22:00 pm

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See’s permanent observer at the United Nations, requested yesterday not to portray asylum-seekers as a threat.

Archbishop Migliore addressed the UN’s agenda issue of “Questions Relating to Refugees, Returnees and Displaced Persons and Humanitarian Issues” on
November 4. During his intervention, the Vatican delegate stated that “the Holy See is daily and acutely aware of the scourges that afflict refugees, displaced persons, returnees, migrants and stateless persons.” 

Recalling the Catholic Church’s “vast experience in working with refugees,” “the list of refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced and stateless persons still number in the millions.”

“In this regard, it is worrying to note,” he added, “that some elements of the media and even some political figures have continued to portray asylum-seekers, refugees and stateless persons, with unfair suspicion and prejudice.”

“This unfortunate portrayal sometimes contributes to make them victims of humiliation, persecution and even violence,” he added.

Migliore announced that the Holy See, “through the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People, the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, Caritas International and other charitable agencies, is doing its share, in cooperation with other agencies,” and expressed the Vatican’s support to “efforts to protect refugees' human dignity and to ensure their basic rights and family reunification.”