Our taxi had dropped us off at the edge of Vatican City, and while Alice and I were waiting to enter, we walked into St. Peter’s Square. This enormous space, capable of holding as many as 300,000 worshipers, has shown little change over the years. We were therefore surprised to discover a bronze sculpture of a small woven boat, crowded with a mass of individuals, that appeared to float on the surface of the plaza.  

From a distance, the figures standing on the boat were ordinary people. A closer look revealed them to be a group of migrants distinguished only by the apparent presence of an angel among them whose wings protruded into the air.

The square that summer day was thronged with people. At the opposite side of the square an immense line of visitors waited to enter St. Peter’s Basilica. Nearer at hand, those who had completed their visit streamed by a few of whom paused to examine the 30-foot-long monument.

In the bright sunlight, what at first seemed a homogeneous group, proved to have remarkable diversity. Standing on the little boat were indigenous peoples with feathered headdresses and rough-woven cloaks, there were victims of the Irish potato family, Italian immigrants, displaced Jews and Eastern Europeans, Africans and Asians, women in hajibs, victims from concentration camps, a pregnant woman flanked by an anxious husband. In the face of such differences, the figures show striking solidarity: they leaned upon one another for support, together the looked ahead across the prow of the boat with penetrating, worried eyes. Each figure was a distinct individual, entirely human, with his or her story to tell.  Each engendered sympathy.

The mass movement of peoples is a worldwide phenomenon.  This past year, on the Mediterranean, an estimated 179,000 migrants passed into Europe with some 2,500 of whom drowned or are missing.  In Central America an estimated 400,000 migrants crossed the isthmus of Panama this past year. The scale and impact of this tragedy is mind-numbing The United Nations’ Refugee Agency, UNHCR, calculates that across the globe 108.4 million persons have been forcibly displaced. Many have entrusted their future to traffickers promising them secure passage. Almost everywhere they are treated as undesirables, criminals and illegals.

Over the years, popes have often addressed issues of emigrants and displaced persons Pope St. John XXIII in his 1959 Encyclical, Pacem in Terris, emphasized that every human being has the right to respect and to a decent living. In 1970 a Pontifical Commission on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants was established, the predecessor of today’s Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development, a body created to deal with issues arising from international movements, resulting from war, poverty, or persecution.

Pope Francis has been especially vocal on behalf of the poor and displaced. “Migration is not an emergency,” he declared, but rather “a reality of our times,’ Speaking to the US Congress in 2015, he reminded legislators “We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation…. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome.” 

At the October 17, 2023 prayer service in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis prayed those who have lost their lives along the various migratory routes.

It was not surprising, therefore, when Pope Francis invited bishops attending the World synod of bishops to join him in prayer on October 17, 2023, for all those who have lost their lives along the various migratory routes. In the evening darkness, several hundred church leaders participating in the International Synod of Bishops, after a long day’s work, walked into St. Peter’s Square to pray before the sculpture on behalf of migrants and refugees. It was a scene of striking simplicity, in which the pope assisted by a deacon in a white alb stood before the throng of darkened huddled figures. “Before you O Lord,” Pope Francis prayed, “no one is a stranger, your help is always present.”

He had expressed such thoughts many times before.

Today,” Pope Francis explained, “there are many who see this but pass to the other side.” Only the Samaritan took him in and treated him as a brother. One can make excuses and try to explain it away. “We can go to the other side of the road and ignore them, but Christ will not let us. “The Lord knows the face of each of them and will not forget it.” The Pope’s remarks ended with a moment of silence for all those “who have lost their lives along different migration routes,” or never achieved their destination, “because they were “exploited or enslaved.”

The Pope’s words were a cry from the heart.  “Like the Good Samaritan, we are called to “be neighbors to all the wayfarers of our time, to save their lives, to heal their wounds and to soothe their pain.” 

That night, as Francis spoke, other dramas were unfolding: men, women and children on leaking, shabby boats were on the treacherous waters off Libya or the Lebanese coast, on the South China Sea, or on the Florida Strait from Cuba, while still others were crossing mountains or wading rivers – each in his or her own way hoping against hope that God in his mercy would answer their prayers.