Pope Francis' first official trip, shortly after taking the bar of the Catholic church in 2013, set the tone for what was going to happen.
He chose to visit the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, one of the main entry points for migrants in Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. There he condemned what he called “globalization of indifference”, in a severe message in the world.
“We got used to the suffering of others. This does not affect us. This does not interest us. This is not our business,” said the pontiff.
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1936, he also came from a family of immigrants who left Italy for Argentina.
Throughout its papacy, Pope Francis never gave in his calls to world leaders and ordinary citizens to treat migrants with humanity.
During a visit in 2023 in the French city of Marseille, he declared that migration is a “reality of our time” and not a short -term emergency.
He urged Europe to respond with “wise foresight” and solidarity to the outbreak of arrivals, and the need for a pan -European response was one of his most repeated pleas.
Moral duty to save and welcome
Pope Francis has systematically underlined the moral imperative to save migrants in danger, in particular those who cross the Mediterranean Sea.
He described the efforts to block rescue operations as “hate gestures” and insisted that “people who risk drowning when they are abandoned on the waves must be saved”.
Speaking during a meeting of bishops and young people from the Mediterranean countries, the pontiff also declared in Marseille, “those who risk their lives at sea do not go”.
“There is a cry of pain that resonates above all and it turns the Mediterranean, the` `nostrum mare '' (our sea in Latin), from the cradle of civilization in` `mortuum '' (sea of death in Latin), the cemetery of dignity,” he said.
The Mediterranean Sea has become one of the largest migrants in the world since 2014, with more than 30,000 deaths, according to the migrant migrant project of the international organization for migration.
While pressure increased in Italy and elsewhere in Europe to repress illegal migration, Pope Francis pleaded to put an end to the practice of returning these rescued people in Libya and other dangerous countries where they suffer from “inhuman violence”.
He called the detention facilities in Libya “real concentration camps”.
“To welcome, protect, promote and integrate”
For the pontiff, the reception meant to offer wider options so that migrants and refugees enter the destination countries in complete safety and legally.
ADVERTISEMENTPope Francis called to open humanitarian corridors for particularly vulnerable refugees, emphasizing the need for a greater number of legal admissions, especially for those who flee war, hunger and poverty.
He also asked States to increase and simplify humanitarian visa processes and family reunification.
The Pope was against the collective and arbitrary expulsions of migrants and refugees, especially when people have returned to countries that cannot guarantee their fundamental rights.
He has called for more countries to adopt private and community sponsorship programs and to grant temporary visas to people fleeing conflicts in neighboring countries.
ADVERTISEMENTPope and Trump
“A person who only thinks of building walls, wherever it is, and not to build bridges, is not Christian,” said Pope Francis in 2016 during a trip to Mexico.
At the time, Donald Trump was a presidential candidate and campaigned to build a wall along the American-Mexican border.
At the end of Trump's first term in 2021, 724 kilometers of wall had been completed, mainly replacing the old structures installed during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W Bush.
The Migrants Deportation Policy of the current Trump Administration was one of the last battles of the Pope.
ADVERTISEMENTOn the campaign track and in his second presidency, Trump repeated threats to expel thousands of migrants who had entered the United States illegally.
Some of these efforts were noted by legal challenges, and earlier in April, a federal judge said that the administration may have been out of the court for ignoring an order not to transform planes carrying migrants to Salvador.
On Sunday of Easter, the day before his death, Pope Francis met the American vice-president JD Vance. The meeting was considered to be a rapprochement between the Trump administration and the Vatican, after Pope Francis has repeatedly criticized the difficult immigration policies of the American administration.
Pope Francis said in January that if Trump's plans for mass deportations were implemented, it would be a “shame”.
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