Scottish Catholic Observer

Forced migration as a result of poverty and violence is a human tragedy, Pope Francis said during his homily at a Mass celebrated on Mexico’s border with the United States.

More than 200,000 people gathered for Mass in Ciudad Juárez with 30,000 people watching a livestream from a football stadium in the Texas city of El Paso.

Borders, the Pope told them, cannot stop us sharing the merciful love of God.

Immigration has been one of the manor issues in the United States in recent months, with presidential candidate Donald Trump calling for the forced deportation of illegal Mexican immigrants.

The Pope has spoken often about the issues, in particular in reference to the crisis in Europe of people entering the continent feeling poverty and violence in Syria, the Middle East and Northern Africa.

“We cannot deny the humanitarian crisis which in recent years has meant migration for thousands of people, whether by train or highway or on foot, crossing hundreds of kilometres through mountains, deserts and inhospitable zones,” the Pope said during his homily. “The human tragedy that is forced migration is a global phenomenon today. This crisis which can be measured in numbers and statistics, we want instead to measure with names, stories, families.

“They are the brothers and sisters of those expelled by poverty and violence, by drug trafficking and criminal organizations. Being faced with so many legal vacuums, they get caught up in a web that ensnares and always destroys the poorest. Not only do they suffer poverty but they must also endure these forms of violence.

“Injustice is radicalised in the young; they are ‘cannon fodder,’ persecuted and threatened when they try to flee the spiral of violence and the hell of drugs, not to mention the tragic predicament of the many women whose lives have been unjustly taken.”

The Mass was the final major event of the Papal visit to Mexico. Pope Francis left the country yesterday, telling Mexicans: “May Mary, Mother of Guadalupe, continue to walk on your lands, helping you to be missionaries and witnesses of mercy and reconciliation.”