Pope mourns death of child migrant
May 31, 2016
Pope Francis met with 400 children on May 28 and lamented the death of a child migrant.
The children were traveling from Rome to Calabria on the “children’s train,” an initiative sponsored by the Pontifical Council of Culture.
“We children promise that we will welcome anyone who arrives in our country: we shall never consider anyone who has a different skin color, or who speaks a different language, or who professes a different religion from ours, a dangerous enemy,” stated a letter that Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the pontifical council’s president, read to the Pope.
The Pope recounted how a migrant boy gave him the life jacket of a girl he could not save from death by drowning.
“I do not [tell you this because I] want you to be sad, but [because] you are brave and you [should] know the truth: they are in danger – many boys and girls, small children, men, women – they are in danger,” said Pope Francis. “Let us think of this little girl: what was her name? I do not know: a little girl with no name. Each of you give her the name you would like, each in his heart. She is in heaven, she is looking on us.”
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