Every month, thousands of people—men, and very often women and children—try to cross the Mediterranean to escape extreme poverty or tyrannical regimes about which international public opinion is all too often silent. Hundreds of these unfortunate people drown every week; there are the bodies counted in the statistics, and there are those that will never be found.
While we do not deny the challenges involved in welcoming these migrants, the question of the assistance needed for their survival is a fundamental issue that must stir the European conscience.
The organizations that work under difficult conditions to save them from certain death are the pride of our time.
L’Oeuvre d’Orient strongly condemns any obstacles that would hinder its work and calls on the relevant authorities to address this serious problem, which is not solely the responsibility of nonprofit organizations.
Bishop Pascal Gollnisch
Paris, June 9, 2017
