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Refugees; the gospel in Britain is a reflection written by the St Andrew's & Edinburgh Caritas, Justice & Peace Group.  In it they look back on history, at our responses to refugee crises and ask do we really have a long and noble tradition of welcoming the stranger?

Since February 2022, a new crisis has been unfolding in Eastern Europe, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia leading to a huge number of people having fled their homes – or what is left of their homes – to find safety elsewhere. Many have been welcomed in neighbouring European countries but in comparison far less by Britain. This is merely the most recent, development in the ongoing challenge of the British response to refugees.  Despite the hundreds who have drowned in the channel and the thousands in the Mediterranean these are merely recent examples in a decades-long history of such human suffering. They reflect a small proportion of the multitude of people who have been displaced from their homes worldwide as a result of war, government oppression, violence and social collapse. More than half of these were ‘internally displaced’ (i.e., refugees from their homes but remaining in their own country).  The vast majority of these are refugees in poor neighbouring countries.  Only a very small proportion have succeeded in finding their way to Europe, and an even smaller proportion are seeking to enter Britain.

Nevertheless, whatever the numbers coming here, the Church regards all these people as children of God, made in his image, whatever their nationality, culture or creed.  We owe each of them the fraternal love which arises from the recognition of our shared humanity, and our sharing in that image of God. This means that we cannot avoid our responsibility, when faced with their powerlessness and vulnerability, to work for their survival and their well-being. Of course, it is true that the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers on our shores will present all kinds of difficulties: pressure on resources etc.  But the command to love our neighbour was not conditional, and it certainly was not conditional on it being easy or devoid of difficulties.

In the past refugees, while they may have been in need when they arrived in Britain, have subsequently contributed hugely to our community by their skills, their work, their culture, and their humanity. British government rhetoric around refugees, and the difficulties presented by their arrival, is often prefaced by reference to ‘our long and noble tradition of welcoming the persecuted’, and such like phrases.  These phrases are almost invariably followed by ‘but ....’.  And some new repressive measure is announced.

Is it actually true that we have a ‘long and noble tradition’ in this respect?  During the greatest moral test of the twentieth century, at least regarding refugees, this country did not demonstrate great generosity.   While six million Jews, and countless others of different ethnic and social groups, were annihilated by the machinery of the Third Reich, the UK admitted only around 60,000 Jewish refugees - about one percent of the number who perished. While around the world, governments blocked and hindered attempts by European Jews to find a place of refuge many Churches worked ceaselessly and often at great risk to find places of safety, to hide Jews from their persecutors, to work behind the scenes to rescue those in dire distress.  

We should perhaps therefore say that it is the Church which has a long and noble tradition, even when government institutions have failed.  In this perspective we should note the words of our present Pope, on the island of Lesbos on 16 April 2016, where thousands of people were arriving in flight from the civil war in Syria: ‘We are going to see the greatest humanitarian tragedy since World War II.... We hope that the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need and respond in a way worthy of our common humanity.’ 

But the Pope was not satisfied with pious wishes for ‘the world’ to heed the ongoing tragedy.  He sought concrete action - not only from governments and their agencies but he called for Christians and church communities to take direct action: ‘I appeal to the parishes, the religious communities, the monasteries and sanctuaries of all Europe to ... [each] take in one family of refugees.’ The Holy Father noted that, ‘It is violence to build walls and barriers to stop those who look for a place of peace.  It is violence to push back those who flee inhuman conditions in the hope of a better future.’

This is the authentic Christian language of the ‘long and noble tradition’.  It is a language the Church needs to recover, to amplify, and to act on, in a context where governments routinely violate it. The Church has a teaching about the dignity of human beings.   It is in the human person that we see the image of God.  It is our response to the hungry, the homeless, the frightened, the incarcerated, that constitutes our response to Christ himself.   If we place borders or social and economic order above the God-given vocation of love of neighbour, if we allow such things to silence our conscience and stifle our merciful response, we commit idolatry.  For we will have given to Caesar those things that belong to God.

We do not claim to have the technical expertise to resolve all the difficulties surrounding the growing number of refugees, forced migrants, displaced people.   But the situation requires not only a technical response, but a moral and spiritual one.   The humanity of the migrant or refugee demands a loving response.  

In the light of the foregoing:

• We urge our Christian brothers and sisters to respond to the call of Pope Francis for all parishes and religious congregations to offer hospitality to a refugee or refugee family.

• We call on government to prioritise not the inviolable sanctity of borders, but the inviolable sanctity of human lives, and especially the lives of the most powerless.

• We call on all Christians and all men and women of good will to work, to organise as communities and citizens, to bring the violence of ‘fortress Europe’ to an end, to create a continent of hospitality, and to commit to the creation of an international order in which the dignity of all is recognised. We urge our government to act together with the international community to address as a matter of urgency the situations around the world – situations of war, oppression, natural disaster, life-threatening poverty and political unfreedom – which cause people to flee their homes and seek refuge elsewhere.  This international action must involve governments, financial institutions, diplomatic and legal collaboration.

• We call on Christians, and all men and women of good will, to reject the language of hostility and suspicion towards refugees that is increasingly on offer, and to make that rejection known to our political leaders, to the media, and to our fellow citizens; thus we may learn to speak as a nation in a voice that is the true heir of that ‘long and honourable’ Christian tradition of hospitality.

Kenneth Sadler, Aberdeen diocese rep for Justice & Peace Scotland reflects on the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI.

On Saturday 31 December 2022, at the age of ninety-five and following a short illness, the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI passed away in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, his Vatican residence. Benedict’s death marked the end of an era for the Church and it was the catalyst for much media commentary on his eventful life and, especially, his time as pope.

Scottish Catholics remembered with affection the heady days in September 2010 when the German pope visited the UK and spent a day in Scotland, where he met Queen Elizabeth II at the Palace of Holyrood House and celebrated Mass with around 70,000 Catholics in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, before flying to London. While there was essentially universal acknowledgement of Benedict’s personal holiness and commitment to Christ, his brilliant theological mind, and deep love of the Church, some pointed to perceived missteps as pontiff which surely contributed to his courageous and radical decision to resign from the papacy in February 2013, rather than attempt to bear its burdens as his physical and mental strength declined due to old age.

The terms ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’, taken from secular politics, can be an awkward fit when applied to the positions held by people within the Catholic Church; they may be useful up to a point, yet only as a crude shorthand that overlooks shared Christian commitment and often fails to give an accurate picture of the believer’s approach. Nevertheless, thanks in part to his reaction against certain experimental excesses that affected the Church in the wake of Vatican II and, of course, his long service under Pope John Paul II as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (1981 to 2005), Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was seen as a conservative choice to succeed the Polish pontiff. Indeed, given the closeness of their relationship, he was very much the continuity candidate, even if he lacked the powerful charisma of his predecessor.

Yet after becoming pope in April 2005 and taking the name Benedict, a tribute to Pope Benedict XV and St Benedict of Nursia, the inadequacy of describing the new pontiff as simply a conservative Catholic became clear. Yes, Benedict adhered completely to the truths of the faith, and he knew that Christ himself was the answer to the often confused and corrupted yearnings of modern humanity – to the whole human question. However, his manner was kind and humble. Benedict’s certainty and the confidence it instilled did not prevent him from engaging with the world as it is or from fostering fruitful dialogue with other Christian communities, other religions, and even unbelievers.

The first encyclical of Benedict’s pontificate, Deus Caritas Est: on Christian Love (2005), came as a surprise to those expecting a moralising letter denouncing the faults and failings of the present age. Instead, Benedict, the faithful and gentle teacher, offered the world a deep and profound treatment of the essence of Christian love and he reflected on what is distinctive in the Church’s practice of charity.

On a personal note, I remain immensely grateful for Benedict’s second encyclical, Spe Salvi: on Christian Hope (2007), with its penetrating reflections on faith, freedom, progress, and the nature of authentic Christian hope. It is also clear to me that that author of Spe Salvi and its compassionate, realistic, and wise passages on death, judgement and eternal life was as well-prepared as any human being could be for the inevitable end of his mortal life.

Those of us who identify as social justice-orientated Catholics can recognise the contribution to Catholic Social Teaching made by Benedict in his third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate: on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth (2009). We can also recognise the use Pope Francis makes of Benedict’s writings in the environmental encyclical Laudato Si’: on Care for our Common Home (2015). Laudato Si’ is a cornerstone of the Argentinian pope’s pontificate and represents a major development of Church teaching, but it is a development that Benedict, the first ‘green pope’, helped pave the way for.

Benedict faced tremendous challenges and difficulties during his life and, in the glare of the world’s media spotlight, as successor to the beloved Pope John Paul the Great. If some commentators speak of errors or misjudgements made by Benedict after he became the Bishop of Rome, we remember the insight of Pope Francis in Gaudete et Exsultate: on the Call to Holiness in Today’s World (2018):

Not everything a saint says is completely faithful to the Gospel; not everything he or she does is authentic or perfect. What we need to contemplate is the totality of their life, their entire journey of growth in holiness, the reflection of Jesus Christ that emerges when we grasp their overall meaning as a person. (GE 22)

Whether Benedict is ever formally canonised or not, when we look on ‘the totality of [his] life’, we surely discern the reflection of his beloved Lord, Jesus Christ, in whose vineyard Joseph Ratzinger laboured so diligently as a ‘humble worker’.

May Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI rest in peace.

Kenneth Sadler
Coordinator, St Mary’s Cathedral Justice and Peace Group
Feast of St John Ogilvie
10 March 2023

Alex Holmes has once again, recently returned from Calais where he supports destitute asylum seekers.   In his latest blog 'Fire' Alex describes life in the BMX camp in freezing conditions.  

‘BMX’, the Eritrean camp, Calais. Minus 6 degrees. The mud is a frozen cross hatch of foot prints; humans, birds, rats. Fireside, the flames offer some comfort from the bitter cold. Saare places small cartons of milk in the orange embers and, once heated, they’re passed around the fireside circle. A charred-black kettle balances precariously on the burning timbers; soon there'll be sweet, warming tea. Nights; plastic jerry cans filled with hot water, two sleeping bags apiece plus blankets make the long freezing hours bearable.

Fire. Over the space of twenty-four hours the temperature has risen by 15 degrees and with the change comes relentless rain. The logs are sodden. Paper handkerchiefs, plastic bags, cooking oil; all are needed to combust the wet wood. At last the wood catches but to keep it burning requires the regular addition of plastic. Acrid black smoke swirls downwind. Saare pokes the melting jerry can, draws his poker upwards and creates a string of plastic spaghetti which he loops into the shape of a heart. Upwind a pallet is wedged against two chairs, a buffer against the strong wind. Aaron takes a burning timber from the fire and holds it close to his wet shoes in an attempt to dry them. Teodros places two tins of lentils beside the fire, takes off his shoes and socks and delicately resting a heel on each tin, he warms his feet

Fire. La Gymnase Gauguin Matisse is just minutes from BMX. The five fire-coloured dancers in Matisse’s 1910 painting ‘La Danse’ are a glorious evocation of life, of energy, of communion. It’s a painting that captures the essence of fireside life in the Eritrean camp. As the bitter wind chills, there’s chicken in a pan on the fire. ‘Tell me when ten minutes have passed, Mr Chef says it needs ten more minutes’. Music is playing on someone’s phone, Eritrean singer Bereket Mesele. Abel gets to his feet and begins an animated dance, his arms raised high in the air. A new energy pulsates around the fireside.

Fire. Gauguin arrived in Tahiti in 1891 to experience Tahitian tribal art and pagan religion only to discover that the French colonisers had suppressed the native traditions that fascinated hm. So he set out to recreate in his painting what had been destroyed. Upa Upa was his first attempt "to recover a trace of this so distant, so mysterious past; to rediscover the ancient hearth, to revive the fire amidst all these ashes." Having no knowledge of it, he expressed it through flames and dancing.

Fire. A brilliance of enlivening energy. But fire burns. Mikaele carries a flaming plastic jerry can from one fire to start another. His fingers are a patchwork of burnt flesh. Filimon’s fire-burnt wrist is marked by a swathe of pink scar tissue. Fire too is metaphor. Fire is the colonial trope that Gauguin encountered 130 years ago; the colonial trope is to control, to negate, to dehumanise. Today it is mirrored in the dehumanising refugee projects of so many former colonial powers. The UK government’s proposal to offshore asylum seekers, to foist its responsibilities under international law onto a third world country, Rwanda, is steeped in this mentality. Rwanda: the ‘R’ word. It seers into the psyche of those around the fire who dream still of reaching the UK. It is the flame that harms, that burns, the very antithesis of the warming, welcoming hearth.

Fire. ‘It’s now ten years since I was at home in my village in Eritrea’, says Girma. ‘We always had a fire outside our house. It was beautiful. On one side there were sheep, on the other, cows, and children playing everywhere. We drank coffee and chatted around the fire’. Dark is falling fast; the flames light up Girma’s face which breaks into a smile. ‘Calais life is hard but I am always happy. I am happy because God is my power.’ He pauses, his smile widening. ‘God is my fire!’ His eyes sparkle.