On Friday Pope Francis paid a visit to Rome’s “Roma Tre” university,
stressing to students the importance of dialogue, listening and
integration in putting an end to the fear that can at times be generated
in the face of welcoming new migrants.
“Migrations are not a danger, they are a challenge to grow,” the Pope
said Feb. 17, adding that “it’s important to think well about the
problem of migrants today, because there’s a migratory phenomenon that’s
so strong.”
“How must migrants be received? How must they be welcomed?” he asked,
stressing that first, they must be viewed “as human brothers and
sisters. They are men and women like us.”
Second, “every country must see how many they are able to welcome,”
he said, noting that while it’s true that a country shouldn’t take on
more than they have the capacity to handle, each one must play their
part.
However, part of welcoming, he said, means “to integrate. That is, to
receive these people and try to integrate them so they can learn the
language, look for a job, a house, integration.”
Pope Francis spoke to students during a morning visit to Rome’s “Roma
Tre” University, which has a school for Economics and Business Studies,
with departments for architecture, economics, philosophy,
communications, law, engineering, language and culture, math and
physics, political science, business and humanities.
After arriving and greeting the rector of the university, Professor
Mario Panizza, as well as the university’s General Director and Vice
Rector, the Pope listened to questions posed by four students at
studying in different fields, and responded with a lengthy, off-the-cuff
speech.
One of the questions was posed by Nour Essa, a Syrian refugee who
fled to Lesbos with her husband and young son. After spending a month in
a refugee camp, they were selected to be among the 12 refugees who flew back to Rome with Pope Francis after his April 16, 2016, visit to the island.
Now, almost a year later, Essa has learned Italian and is completing
her studies in Agriculture and Microbiology. She asked the Pope how to
overcome the fear that welcoming so many migrants into Europe will
destroy its cultural identity.
In his response to Essa’s question, the Pope stressed the importance
of accompanying new migrants in a process of integration, and pointed to
the fact that within three days of arriving in Italy, the children who
came back with him from Lesbos were already in school.
When three months later he invited 21 Syrian
children to join him for lunch at the Vatican, they all “spoke
Italian,” Francis said. “The older ones a bit less, but they all spoke
it. They went to school and learned it. This is integration.”
He noted that the majority of migrants who came back that day have
both a job and a person to help them integrate into the culture by
providing “open doors” to find work, school and housing, voicing his
desire for more organizations dedicated to helping in the process of
integration.
On the point of the fear of losing one’s cultural identity by
welcoming so many migrants, the Pope said he often asks himself “how
many invasions has Europe had since the beginning? Europe was made from
invasions, migrants...it was made like this in an artisanal way.”
Migrants, he said, bring their own culture which is “a richness for
us,” but must also receive part of the culture they come to so that a
real “exchange of cultures” takes place.
“Yes, there is fear, but the fear is not only of migrants,” but of those who commit crimes, he said, and, pointing to the bombing
of an airport and subway in Belgium last year, noted that the persons
who carried out the attacks “were Belgians, born in Belgium.”
They were the children of migrants, but migrants that had been
“ghettoized,” rather than integrated, he said, explaining that fostering
respect for one another can “take away” this fear of different
cultures.
In addition to responding to Essa’s question, Pope Francis also took
questions from three other students studying in different fields at the
university.
The students were Roman-born Niccolo Romano, who asked about how
universities can work maintain their “communis patria,” or “common
homeland” for all; Giulia Trifilio, who asked the Pope what “medicine”
is needed in order to combat violent acts in the world; and Riccardo
Zucchetti, who asked how students can work to constructively build
society in an increasingly changing and globalized world.
In response to Trifilio’s question on how to put an end to the
violent acts humanity at times seems prone to throughout the world, the
Pope spoke about the importance of language and “the tone” that’s
frequently used, even in casual conversations.
Whether at home or on the street, many people today “yell,” he said,
explaining that unfortunately “there is also violence” in the way people
express themselves.
He also pointed to the arbitrary greetings between even family
members, who in a morning rush pass by with a quick, yet meaningless
“hey” while on the way out the door. Even these seemingly small things,
he said, “make violence” because they make the other person “anonymous,”
taking away their name.
“There’s a person in front of us with a name, but I greet you like
you are a thing,” he said, noting that this starts at the interpersonal
level, but “grows and grows and grows and becomes global.”
“No one can deny that we are at war. This is a third world war in
pieces,” Francis said, adding that “we need to lower the tone a bit; to
speak less and listen more.”
As a remedy, the Pope suggested the ability to listen and receive
what the other person is saying as the first “medicine” to take, with
dialogue as a second.
“Dialogue draws near, not only to the person, but hearts. It makes
friendship. It makes social friendship,” he said, adding that where
there is no dialogue, “there is violence.”
“I spoke of war. It’s true, we are at war, but wars don’t start
there, they start in your heart, in our hearts, when I am not able to
open myself to others, to respect others, to speak with others, to
dialogue with others, war starts there.”
This must also be practiced at the university level, he said,
explaining that a university must be a place where discussion takes
place among students, professors and groups. If this doesn’t happen, “it
isn’t a university.”
Pope Francis cautioned against what he termed as “university of the
elite,” or the so-called “ideological universities” where students go,
are taught one line of thinking, and then prepared “to make an agenda of
this ideology” in society.
“That is not a university,” he said. “I go to university to learn,
yes, but to learn to live the truth, to seek the truth, to seek
goodness, to live beauty and seek beauty. This is done together on a
university path that never finishes.”
In response to the question about building up society amid rapid
changes and increasing globalization, the Pope said an important lesson
that has to be learned is to “take like as it comes.”
With so many changes mean there is a great need for flexibility, he
said, using the example of being ready to catch a ball from whatever
direction it comes in.
He also emphasized the importance of unity, which is “totally
different than uniformity.”
Unity, he said, means “to be one among
differences. Unity in diversity.”
Since we are living in “an age of globalization,” Francis said it
would be “a mistake” to think of globalization like a ball in which each
point is equally far from the center.
If organized this way, “everything is uniform” and there is no
differences, he said, but stressed that “this uniformity is the
destruction of unity, because it takes away the possibility of being
different.”
On the rapid pace of communications in modern society, Pope Francis
recognized that “an acceleration” is taking place, and pointed to the
rule of the Law of Gravity, that as an object falls faster as it nears
its destination.
“Today communications are like this with the danger of not having the
time to stop oneself, to think, to reflect, and this is important, to
get used to communicating, but without the sensation of ‘rapidity,’” he
said.
At times communication goes so fast that it “can become liquid,
without consistency,” so the challenge is one of “transforming this
liquidity into concreteness,” Francis said, explaining that same concept
also goes for the economy.
Using “concreteness” as his keyword for the point, the Pope said the
“drama of today’s economy” is that there is a liquid economy, which
leads to “a liquid society” with a high rate of unemployment.
Francis pointed to several European countries as examples and,
without naming them, noted that specifically youth unemployment rates in
several vary from 40-60 percent.
“I ask you the question: our dear mother Europe, the identity of
Europe, how can one think that developed countries have youth
unemployment so strong?” he said, explaining that the numbers are
evidence that “this liquidity of the economy takes the concreteness of
work, and takes the culture of work because one can’t work.”
In the absence of work, youth “don’t know what to do” and in the end
fall into addictions or suicide, he said, adding that according to what
he’s heard, “the true statistics of youth suicide are not published. The
publish something, but it’s not the true statistics.”
Some youth even fall into terrorist groups, telling themselves “at
least I have something to do that gives meaning to my life,” the Pope
observed, adding that “it’s terrible.”
In order to solve the problems created by this type of “liquid
economy,” concreteness is needed, he said, “otherwise it can’t be done.”
Universities must be the place in which this happens, he said,
telling the students that “in the dialogue among you, also look for
solutions to propose. The real problems against this liquid culture.”