Syrian Refugee Crisis

[Ice_nine]

*Just as a warning this is mostly venting and I'm not sure what it will accomplish, but I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on the matter even if you don't want to read/respond to my diatribe. Also I'm taking my irritation out on conservatives because I'm mostly seeing the conservative reaction on social media not because I love Obama/Pelosi/Hillary/ISIS/Islam etc*

So, I am very disheartened about this entire situation. The massive loss of life and deracination is certainly upsetting. But what I find even more upsetting is the reaction I'm seeing out of a lot of people who claim to be conservative Christians. Posting videos and articles about how we should not allow refugees into our borders because this is actually not a refugee crisis but a "trojan horse" to infiltrate the west and spread jihad. The leftist muslim-loving media is in cahoots with someone or something and is bent on the destruction of our great society. Yes, people actually believe this and I'm finding it super frustrating.

Nor do I think the refugees are all angels and are behaving perfectly. It is a tense time. People act out on both sides, I get that. But it just seems to me the conservative mind is ruled by FEAR. How can you look at children and families who are homeless, hundreds or thousands of miles from everything they knew, and the FIRST thing you think of is that they are a threat that must be neutralized, not suffering humans in desperate need?

I mean I'm anxiety-prone and particularly attentive to threatening stimuli so I get that, but isn't being a Christian about loving your enemies and neighbors? Sometimes I get the point that it's reduced to survival of you and your tribe, which strikes me as uninspiring and primal rather than elevated Christian living.

Furthermore I am sick of people who cannot and will not see how W and the US in large part created this mess in the Middle East. You can't just go in and create a massive power vacuum in a much different part of the world and hope for the best. The fallout has been disastrous, and conservatives want to place all of the blame squarely on Obama without acknowledging who and what preceded him.

The supreme irony in all of this is that prior to the US invasion of the Iraq and countries as such as and the Asian countries who don't have maps, is that Middle Eastern Christians, although not living in paradise, had much more protections than they do now. And of course supporters of more war and bombing the hell out of Iran and any Arab sounding place are . . . Christians! Am I living in the Twilight Zone here?

Are there some militants among the refugees? Maybe. Should we turn our back on the lot of them then? I'm just torn over the inhumanity of it all.

[NadaTeTurbe]

Thank you for this message. 

The Jesuit Refugee Service are really a great help for refugee. You can help them here : http://en.jrs.net/campaign_detail?TN=PROJECT-20150910084429 

[Didacus]

Allowing the refugees to migrate does not address the core problem in Syria.  

 

I will admit that at this point the middle east was better, it would seem, with Saddam H. In place than without. St Thmas Aquinas did express something akin to not removing tyrants by force because it makes things worse.  

I do not believe that Christians are to blame for the various conflicts in the middle east. The divisions internal to islam is the fundamental driver of these conflicts. It is also, for example, the main reason why neighboring nations to Syria refuse to take in 'migrants'.  

[Luigi]

Here are a couple of thoughts on the matter - not cohesively unrelated, but you asked for thoughts.

1. Nobody has the right to go into another country unless the receiving country gives permission - immigration quota, work visa, student visa, something. If they come into the country unbidden, it's like people forcing their way into your house and then demanding to be fed.

2. I do empathize with people who are caught in the crossfire of a vicious power struggle. And it's natural for them to run from the scenes of destruction. But do they all have to run to the same few countries? Nobody's running to Egypt or Turkey (for permanent residence) or lots of other places. If I were a Muslim, I would want to take refuge in a Muslim country rather than a Christian country. The fact they they're all targeting Europe - specifically the most prosperous countries in Europe (we don't want no stinking Serbia or Hungary or even France - we want London!) causes me to wonder how many refugees are running for safety and how many are running for economic opportunity.

3. The images of refugees being tripped by cameramen are disturbing, but so are images of Muslims throwing away bottle water because it was delivered by the Red Cross instead of a Muslim relief agency.

4. It is natural for the citizens of the receiving countries to feel afraid. Especially after they've struggled for generations to integrate previous immigrants into their national life, as has been the case in Germany, France, and other countries. And especially when some of their own immigrant citizens have turned violent as in the Charlie Hebdo event. The waves of refugees only compound the fear in the receiving countries when they swarm border fences and have to be driven back with pepper spray and water cannons.

5. I don't have too much sympathy for France, Germany, England, et al, because Italy has been dealing with a refugee crisis for four or five years now, and northern Europe has turned a willfully blind eye to the problem. So they shouldn't be too surprised that the problem has gotten worse and the refugees are now knocking on their door.

 

As my cousin says of her relationship, "it's complicate."

[Ice_nine]

Allowing the refugees to migrate does not address the core problem in Syria.  

 

I will admit that at this point the middle east was better, it would seem, with Saddam H. In place than without. St Thmas Aquinas did express something akin to not removing tyrants by force because it makes things worse.  

I do not believe that Christians are to blame for the various conflicts in the middle east. The divisions internal to islam is the fundamental driver of these conflicts. It is also, for example, the main reason why neighboring nations to Syria refuse to take in 'migrants'.  

Just in case you misunderstood me, I don't think Christians in the ME are to blame, I think that they are one of the main VICTIMS of a conflict that was partially caused/supported by American Christians.

Here are a couple of thoughts on the matter - not cohesively unrelated, but you asked for thoughts.

1. Nobody has the right to go into another country unless the receiving country gives permission - immigration quota, work visa, student visa, something. If they come into the country unbidden, it's like people forcing their way into your house and then demanding to be fed.

2. I do empathize with people who are caught in the crossfire of a vicious power struggle. And it's natural for them to run from the scenes of destruction. But do they all have to run to the same few countries? Nobody's running to Egypt or Turkey (for permanent residence) or lots of other places. If I were a Muslim, I would want to take refuge in a Muslim country rather than a Christian country. The fact they they're all targeting Europe - specifically the most prosperous countries in Europe (we don't want no stinking Serbia or Hungary or even France - we want London!) causes me to wonder how many refugees are running for safety and how many are running for economic opportunity.

3. The images of refugees being tripped by cameramen are disturbing, but so are images of Muslims throwing away bottle water because it was delivered by the Red Cross instead of a Muslim relief agency.

4. It is natural for the citizens of the receiving countries to feel afraid. Especially after they've struggled for generations to integrate previous immigrants into their national life, as has been the case in Germany, France, and other countries. And especially when some of their own immigrant citizens have turned violent as in the Charlie Hebdo event. The waves of refugees only compound the fear in the receiving countries when they swarm border fences and have to be driven back with pepper spray and water cannons.

5. I don't have too much sympathy for France, Germany, England, et al, because Italy has been dealing with a refugee crisis for four or five years now, and northern Europe has turned a willfully blind eye to the problem. So they shouldn't be too surprised that the problem has gotten worse and the refugees are now knocking on their door.

 

As my cousin says of her relationship, "it's complicate."

Luigi I appreciate your comments. May I reply?

1)I have to admit after your first comment I thought, "YES, what about US military presence in nations who do not want us there?" There's that sign of the coin too. If you proclaim to be a moral force in the world and want to impose your goodness on other nations then how can you then refuse to welcome people into your nation? I'm not saying the US causes every war everywhere but we do have our nose in pretty much every country in the world so you can understand why I think the US should be held partly responsible for this mess and therefore responsible in cleaning it up.

2) Going by the numbers I've seen, and the ones listed on wikipedia, the countries with the highest number of refugees is Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Kuwait, with Germany following with about 100K refugees. Again the media representation is that they are "all running to Europe" so I don't blame you for thinking that, but I don't think it's accurate. Also economic security has much to do with safety. Poverty is dangerous.

3) Yes, I don't get that. If I was thirsty I'd take water from a Sikh or pretty much anyone. I wonder if we're getting the whole story though? Is that why they're throwing the water? I don't know. I hope not but the situation is 100% chaos.

4) Of course fear is natural. I GET fear. Aren't we supposed to rise above that though? There's something to be said for self-preservation, for sure. But it's not brave or really all that admirable IMO.

5) True

 

 

[NadaTeTurbe]

2) THey do not target Europe, they target muslims countries. There is 1 milions of refugees in Lebanon and the country is on the verge of explosion (not only because of this. Having a president would help !)

4) The Charlie Hebdo killer was 100% French, as was Mohammed Merah. They have nothing to do with refugee. Statistically, refugees are less likely to commits crimes than a normal citizen. 

My parish is welcoming a refugee family. Their story is so horrible, and their will to integrate is admirable. They are working hard to learn french. 

[beatitude]

1.) Nobody has the right to go into another country unless the receiving country gives permission - immigration quota, work visa, student visa, something. If they come into the country unbidden, it's like people forcing their way into your house and then demanding to be fed.

2. I do empathize with people who are caught in the crossfire of a vicious power struggle. And it's natural for them to run from the scenes of destruction. But do they all have to run to the same few countries? Nobody's running to Egypt or Turkey (for permanent residence) or lots of other places. If I were a Muslim, I would want to take refuge in a Muslim country rather than a Christian country. The fact they they're all targeting Europe - specifically the most prosperous countries in Europe (we don't want no stinking Serbia or Hungary or even France - we want London!) causes me to wonder how many refugees are running for safety and how many are running for economic opportunity.

 

I don't have much time, but I wanted to respond specifically to this. As Ice has already pointed out, the countries with the largest number of refugees are Jordan and Turkey. Lebanon also has a significant refugee population. The idea that everyone is aiming for Europe is false and it makes me very angry with the press, because they have whipped up a climate of fear against these people and portrayed them as greedy opportunists in what is a racist as well as illogical way. It wasn't the case that they were all dirt poor and sitting in tents with no life and no opportunities in their home countries, despite popular beliefs. When I was stationed in one country and blogging about my experiences, I got this comment from someone in the US: "Wow, I didn't know they had the Internet there, let alone computers! What's it like there? Is it scary?" This is an example of extreme ignorance, but that ignorance is widespread in a less crude form - a lot of people honestly don't seem to grasp that these refugees had lives and families and hopes and aspirations right where they were, and they would not choose to wrench themselves away from home unless those things had been smashed. That they aren't flies swarming over the candy house that is Europe, they are people and they were as attached to their homes as we are to ours.

International policy on refugees is that they should present themselves for asylum in the first safe country they reach (the Dublin principle). In practice they may try to reach a country further away, because if they are deported, they won't be sent back to their country of origin but to their last port of embarkation. So travelling through six countries provides them with six safety nets, and I can see why they would feel the need for that, because running for your life doesn't guarantee that you will be granted refuge. It should do, but it doesn't. So they want to increase their chances. There is also the issue of language - French and English are the most widely taught second languages in the MENA region, and given a choice, people believe that it would be easier for them to cope and rebuild a life in a country where they speak the language, as opposed to trying to learn Romanian from scratch on top of everything else.

All the stories of people's fear remind me of Christ's parable of the Good Samaritan. At that time, the Samaritans were perceived as some sinister threat. It wasn't coincidence that Christ used the shadowy sinister outsider whom everybody was scared of to illustrate what he meant by loving your neighbour. Being from the UK, I also keep remembering the last major refugee crisis we saw in Europe, in World War II, and how many people died needlessly because of the quota system and the frankly disgusting behaviour of certain sections of the press. Now, seventy years later, we wring our hands over that and say how wrong it was, that those people who were labelled 'aliens' and potential Nazi agents and threats to British culture were really victims of persecution. If only we'd opened the doors so they didn't all burn in the death camps. Never again. But these Syrians now, fleeing chemical weapons and torture and destruction that we can't even imagine? That's not the same. They're different. They really are aliens, potential IS agents, threats to British culture. It makes me want to cry. Seventy years later, will we be saying sorry? It isn't enough.

As for this idea that nobody has a "right" to be admitted - I did not get born with British citizenship because I deserve it. It isn't my merit that I'm leading a comfortable life and they have got a turbulent and dangerous one. They have got the same basic rights as I have to food and shelter and safety and human dignity. So I can't sit here and tell them, "I'm sorry for you, but you've got no right to come here." That misses the point. This week London hosted a massive arms fair, which recurs every two years and to which pretty much every despot under the sun is invited to shop for weapons. This year one of the protesters had a sign: "They aren't chasing our benefits, they're running from our bombs." As a society we cannot profiteer from war and then pretend that this human misery is nothing to do with us when it washes up on our shores. This is another reason why the "they're a threat to our culture and society" argument sounds so strange to me - none of the people who say this are talking about the damage that it does to our society to make a profit on weapons, the damage that it does to our culture to close the door in the faces of people who need help. Christ made it very clear that the damage resulting from that is terrible. You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, a stranger and you did not welcome me...Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it we saw you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger...?"

Edited September 17, 2015 by beatitude

[Egeria]

I don't have much time, but I wanted to respond specifically to this. As Ice has already pointed out, the countries with the largest number of refugees are Jordan and Turkey. Lebanon also has a significant refugee population. The idea that everyone is aiming for Europe is false and it makes me very angry with the press, because they have whipped up a climate of fear against these people and portrayed them as greedy opportunists in what is a racist as well as illogical way. It wasn't the case that they were all dirt poor and sitting in tents with no life and no opportunities in their home countries, despite popular beliefs. When I was stationed in one country and blogging about my experiences, I got this comment from someone in the US: "Wow, I didn't know they had the Internet there, let alone computers! What's it like there? Is it scary?" This is an example of extreme ignorance, but that ignorance is widespread in a less crude form - a lot of people honestly don't seem to grasp that these refugees had lives and families and hopes and aspirations right where they were, and they would not choose to wrench themselves away from home unless those things had been smashed. That they aren't flies swarming over the candy house that is Europe, they are people and they were as attached to their homes as we are to ours.

International policy on refugees is that they should present themselves for asylum in the first safe country they reach (the Dublin principle). In practice they may try to reach a country further away, because if they are deported, they won't be sent back to their country of origin but to their last port of embarkation. So travelling through six countries provides them with six safety nets, and I can see why they would feel the need for that, because running for your life doesn't guarantee that you will be granted refuge. It should do, but it doesn't. So they want to increase their chances. There is also the issue of language - French and English are the most widely taught second languages in the MENA region, and given a choice, people believe that it would be easier for them to cope and rebuild a life in a country where they speak the language, as opposed to trying to learn Romanian from scratch on top of everything else.

All the stories of people's fear remind me of Christ's parable of the Good Samaritan. At that time, the Samaritans were perceived as some sinister threat. It wasn't coincidence that Christ used the shadowy sinister outsider whom everybody was scared of to illustrate what he meant by loving your neighbour. Being from the UK, I also keep remembering the last major refugee crisis we saw in Europe, in World War II, and how many people died needlessly because of the quota system and the frankly disgusting behaviour of certain sections of the press. Now, seventy years later, we wring our hands over that and say how wrong it was, that those people who were labelled 'aliens' and potential Nazi agents and threats to British culture were really victims of persecution. If only we'd opened the doors so they didn't all burn in the death camps. Never again. But these Syrians now, fleeing chemical weapons and torture and destruction that we can't even imagine? That's not the same. They're different. They really are aliens, potential IS agents, threats to British culture. It makes me want to cry. Seventy years later, will we be saying sorry? It isn't enough.

As for this idea that nobody has a "right" to be admitted - I did not get born with British citizenship because I deserve it. It isn't my merit that I'm leading a comfortable life and they have got a turbulent and dangerous one. They have got the same basic rights as I have to food and shelter and safety and human dignity. So I can't sit here and tell them, "I'm sorry for you, but you've got no right to come here." That misses the point. This week London hosted a massive arms fair, which recurs every two years and to which pretty much every despot under the sun is invited to shop for weapons. This year one of the protesters had a sign: "They aren't chasing our benefits, they're running from our bombs." As a society we cannot profiteer from war and then pretend that this human misery is nothing to do with us when it washes up on our shores. This is another reason why the "they're a threat to our culture and society" argument sounds so strange to me - none of the people who say this are talking about the damage that it does to our society to make a profit on weapons, the damage that it does to our culture to close the door in the faces of people who need help. Christ made it very clear that the damage resulting from that is terrible. You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, a stranger and you did not welcome me...Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it we saw you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger...?"

I wish I could prop this a thousand times, Beatitude!

Just over a decade ago, I spent some time with a religious community in Syria that received all sorts of guests and pilgrims. I have recently been reminded of a conversation I had with a Dutch pilgrim whom I met there. He was walking from Tilburg to Jerusalem and, like virtually all the other foreigners I met there, commented on how overwhelmingly hospitable the Syrians were. He had a tent with him and had been camping as he went, but said that once he crossed the border into Syria he had not used it once as people had just invited him into their homes. He also said that he used to listen to the Dutch world service radio and recounted how awful he felt as he listened to the Europeans discussing immigration and xenophobia, especially against the backdrop of the hospitality he was experiencing as a foreigner among the Syrians.

And now (some of) those same Syrians are seeking refuge in western Europe, due to a situation for which the western powers are themselves deeply responsible.

[Didacus]

No issues with them seeking refuge.  

No need for them to be migrants.  

[blazeingstar]

I guess my question is if we have a country of 22 million where 1.9 million have left likely illegally why are we putzing around the issue of why they feel they must leave.  This is nearly 10% of the population who want out due to unspeakable horror. 

For a comparison---there are 560 million people in Central America and only about 6 million illegal immigrants/refugees from those countries living in the US. 

I don't see this as an immigrant problem, I see this as a Syria problem.  Everyone has the right to live in the nation of their birth and to keep the traditions and culture intact unless they freely seek otherwise.  This is why I believe that child sponsorship which can keep a child with even a distant relative in a 3rd world country is far better than adoption.  They have a right to know where they are from and to walk upon the soil.  The refugees are no different, they are simply older and in a bad situation.

Syria can bleed and bleed people until it's empty of everyone but ISIS.  Then what?  We need to address the root of the problem and stop people for abandoning everything just so they aren't bombed in their sleep.

 

[Ice_nine]

That may be true blaze that people should be able live in the nation of their birth. People don't want to leave their homeland, which should tell you how desperate the situation is. It's not just even getting bombed in their sleep. You've seen the things ISIS has done, bombs are probably considered too merciful for them.

[Didacus]

That may be true blaze that people should be able live in the nation of their birth. People don't want to leave their homeland, which should tell you how desperate the situation is. It's not just even getting bombed in their sleep. You've seen the things ISIS has done, bombs are probably considered too merciful for them.

right. 

So let's help them resolve their issues at home - letting them migrate to our homelands resolves bothing for theirs. 

Keep them safe and fed until the crisis is over (refuges) and then they can return to their homes (not migrants).  

[Egeria]

Most people in the world are descended from migrants. Sometimes they migrated because of wars, sometimes for other reasons.

[Didacus]

Most people in the world are descended from migrants. Sometimes they migrated because of wars, sometimes for other reasons.

This does not produce any obligations, moral or lawful, for any given nation towards pending immigrants of any sort.  

[bardegaulois]

*Just as a warning this is mostly venting and I'm not sure what it will accomplish, but I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on the matter even if you don't want to read/respond to my diatribe. Also I'm taking my irritation out on conservatives because I'm mostly seeing the conservative reaction on social media not because I love Obama/Pelosi/Hillary/ISIS/Islam etc*

So, I am very disheartened about this entire situation. The massive loss of life and deracination is certainly upsetting. But what I find even more upsetting is the reaction I'm seeing out of a lot of people who claim to be conservative Christians. Posting videos and articles about how we should not allow refugees into our borders because this is actually not a refugee crisis but a "trojan horse" to infiltrate the west and spread jihad. The leftist muslim-loving media is in cahoots with someone or something and is bent on the destruction of our great society. Yes, people actually believe this and I'm finding it super frustrating.

Nor do I think the refugees are all angels and are behaving perfectly. It is a tense time. People act out on both sides, I get that. But it just seems to me the conservative mind is ruled by FEAR. How can you look at children and families who are homeless, hundreds or thousands of miles from everything they knew, and the FIRST thing you think of is that they are a threat that must be neutralized, not suffering humans in desperate need?

I mean I'm anxiety-prone and particularly attentive to threatening stimuli so I get that, but isn't being a Christian about loving your enemies and neighbors? Sometimes I get the point that it's reduced to survival of you and your tribe, which strikes me as uninspiring and primal rather than elevated Christian living.

Furthermore I am sick of people who cannot and will not see how W and the US in large part created this mess in the Middle East. You can't just go in and create a massive power vacuum in a much different part of the world and hope for the best. The fallout has been disastrous, and conservatives want to place all of the blame squarely on Obama without acknowledging who and what preceded him.

The supreme irony in all of this is that prior to the US invasion of the Iraq and countries as such as and the Asian countries who don't have maps, is that Middle Eastern Christians, although not living in paradise, had much more protections than they do now. And of course supporters of more war and bombing the hell out of Iran and any Arab sounding place are . . . Christians! Am I living in the Twilight Zone here?

Are there some militants among the refugees? Maybe. Should we turn our back on the lot of them then? I'm just torn over the inhumanity of it all.

I'm going to be perfectly frank about my views on the whole issue here, having looked into it very carefully. The media loves to show us photographs of families with young children with sob stories about the war, and thus we must admit that there are authentic refugees among the migrant population who should be treated with compassion. However, what we are not seeing in the press very much is the fact that perhaps the majority of those seeking asylum are unaccompanied young men of military age. With this in mind, we must ask, why then are they not enlisting so as to defeat the threats facing their native land? Why are they leaving women and children there at the mercies of ISIS, whose practice of sexual slavery should disgust any civilized human being? Many of the women in the region have taken up arms and are fighting, notably among the Kurds (and fulfilling acts worthy of Old Testament heroines: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-Threat/Iraqi-Women-kills-ISIS-commander-after-forcing-her-into-sex-slavery-415519), but the men, apparently, like the idea of getting on benefits in Europe better apparently. I've heard from soldiers who fought in Iraq that the Iraqi army and police, trained at great expense to the United States, lay down their arms and flee at the first sign of trouble; we may presume that the culturally similar Syrians are doing the same thing. Maybe one of those missing Syrian fighters whose training cost an exorbitant sum will be found at a German border checkpoint.

This leads to my second issue: why Europe? Already there are refugee camps dotting Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, with most of the financial support for them coming from the UN and from Western countries. European countries are quite culturally dissimilar, but places like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are not, and they're not taking their co-religionists in. Many of the difficulties that we've seen over the past decade or so throughout the EU should show us that the very open migration from the Middle East and North Africa is not making Europe a richer or more peaceful place, but is instead sowing a lot of discord. Many unscrupulous politicians, moreover, will use this to their advantage, and we certainly don't want to see the flames of the far right fanned again. I'm all for welcoming immigrants IF they are able to make a contribution to a society and IF they have relatively similar values to those of the nation they wish to enter. I'm not for welcoming those in who will simply be a lag on the economy or even a potential danger to the citizens of my country, where a nation's first responsibility should always lie. Thus, I speak in favour of a melting-pot ethos, not an Ottoman-style millet system that was certainly a leading cause of all the discord we're seeing in the Middle East now.

Lastly, there's the matter of security, not only physical security, but cultural security. States exist to defend the physical security and cultural liberties of the people therein, and laying out the welcome mat to those who could potentially threaten that is little more than a betrayal of one's own fellow-citizens. I've been following the situation in Hungary for a while, where the Orban government has been endeavouring to stress the distinctly Christian character of the Hungarian people in the face of EU hostility for a long time. Long a bulwark of Europe against the Ottomans, Hungary is now stressing in the face of the mass migration threatening to overburden both it and its neighbours, completely change their demographics, and de-Christianize Europe quite a bit further, which is perhaps why a policy of accepting these migrants is so strongly supported by the typical secularist politicians. With a certain journalistic sleight of hand, we could say that the Arian Goths were migrants and refugees seeking safe haven in the Roman Empire, and I'm sure that's probably how they represented themselves. If you don't know what happened next, check your history books.

As far as Western policy in the Middle East goes, history will likely remember it as a policy built upon a stupidity so monumental that it baffles the imagination. From Carter's betrayal of the Shah to Bush the Elder's coalition against the country that was the hedge against the Iranian Shiites to Bush the Younger and Obama's support for the "Arab Spring" overthrowing countries that might be despotic but are at least stable, we've opened a Pandora's box of trouble in the Middle East that will take decades to resolve itself. (So if we want to house refugees anywhere, maybe we should do it on George W Bush's ranch or in the summer homes of our various Senators and Congressmen?)

As far as the ecclesiastical issues in play, I believe Antonio Socci does a much better job than I do explaining them, with reference to magisterial statements of Popes St John Paul and Benedict: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/09/socci-populism-of-pope-on-immigration.html. Further, with reference to everything I have mentioned, I must state that if Europe or any country of European extraction is to make an exception for refugees, it should be for those who are the most authentic refugees of the Middle East, our brother Christians. It is a pity that I have heard more about their plight from the mouth of Vladimir Putin than I have from Pope Francis.