Oct 3, 2007 / 07:55 am
“Millions of normal, ordinary human beings are thrust into situations of incredible humiliation and suffering,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi in a statement to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Archbishop Tomasi, the head of the Holy See’s permanent observer mission to the United Nations, surveyed the plight of peoples forcibly displaced from their homes by violent conflicts, extreme misery, environmental degradation, religious persecution, and other injustices. Globally some ten million people are estimated to be refugees from their home country, while about twenty-four million are internally displaced within their country of origin.
The archbishop warned against indifference to these numbers: “Public opinion tends to accept almost as normal the fact that millions of fellow human beings are so uprooted and relegated to miserable and painful conditions. But welcoming refugees and giving them hospitality is, for every one, a vital gesture of human solidarity in order to help them feel less isolated by intolerance and disinterest.”
He urged that uprooted persons take first priority in the international community and that gaps in refugee aid be remedied. Truly respecting the rights of displaced persons, he claimed, would lead to a comprehensive response for their safety. “A globalization of protection results from a globalization of rights.”