The Blood of Christ, the Blood of Immigrants

For the pope’s visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, where scores of immigrants have died trying to reach safety, CNS notes:

In his homily at an outdoor Mass, Pope Francis said he decided to visit Lampedusa, a small island with a population of 6,000 and just 70 miles from Tunisia, after seeing newspaper headlines in June describing the drowning of immigrants at sea.

“Those boats, instead of being a means of hope, were a means of death,” he said.

Wearing purple vestments, like those used during Lent, and using the prayers from the Mass for the Forgiveness of Sins, Pope Francis said the deaths of the immigrants are “like a thorn in the heart,” which spurred him to offer public prayers for them, but also to try to awaken people’s consciences.

“Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters of ours?” the pope asked in his homily. “All of us respond: ‘It wasn’t me. I have nothing to do with it. It was others, certainly not me.'”

“Today no one feels responsible for this,” he said. “We have lost a sense of fraternal responsibility” and are acting like those in the Gospel who saw the man who had been beaten, robbed and left on the road half dead, but they kept walking.

“Maybe we think, ‘Oh, poor soul,’ but we continue on our way,” the pope said…

…The Mass was filled with reminders that Lampedusa is now synonymous with dangerous attempts to reach Europe: the altar was built over a small boat; the pastoral staff the pope used was carved from wood recycled from a shipwrecked boat; the lectern was made from old wood as well and had a ship’s wheel mounted on the front; and even the chalice — although lined with silver — was carved from the wood of a wrecked boat.