One of the wonderful things about this World Youth Day has been the opportunity for so many pilgrims, including Australians, to participate in mission activity in different locations around South America in the week leading up to Rio.

Our confrere Fr Stephen Pilly SVD was among a group from Melbourne who spent time with a parish of the Columban missionaries in Santiago, Chile.

Some of the blogs and video diaries from pilgrims travelling with various groups, show that many of these young people – some of whom have not left Australia before – have been blown away, both by the humble living circumstances they’ve seen during their mission week and the generous warmth and hospitality of the people they’ve met. We pray that this World Youth Day experience will deepen the faith of our pilgrims and open their hearts to a life lived in Christ’s mission.

By contrast, the news of the Australian Government’s so-called “PNG Solution” for asylum seekers, in which all people arriving without visas by boat would be sent to Papua New Guinea has been disappointing.

We Divine Word Missionaries, feel a special sadness at the new arrangement, after providing accommodation for asylum seekers in Melbourne and Sydney over the last couple of years. The men that we have come to know over that period have been fleeing terrible situations and made the desperate journey to Australia in the hope of finding a new life.

Those seeking asylum in Australia will now be sent to PNG, one of the poorest countries in the region. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of PNG speak on behalf of the people there in saying that they are offended by the implication that resettlement in PNG would be a deterrent. They acknowledge that PNG is not in a position presently to accept and attend to the needs of a sizeable influx of immigrants.

Added to this is the hard line of some Australian media outlets claiming that PNG is a country beset by violence and poverty – when our missionaries know that PNG people are a proud and free race living their own set of priorities in a beautiful land.

Indeed it is hard to see how a nation with so many challenges of its own will handle such a task, but at least we can admire their hospitality, a hospitality that Australia, a much wealthier nation, seems not to possess.

I pray for an end to the practice of transporting desperate families across the seas in dangerous, leaking boats as there have been too many lives lost. But without a regional solution it seems unlikely that the movement of people from country to country will abate.

Our confrere from Chicago, Fr vanThanh Nguyen SVD reminded us in his recent visit that behind the statistics of migration there are people with faces and names. May God be with those in the world who have to flee their homeland and have no place to call home. And may we open our hearts to always welcome the stranger in our midst.

Yours in the Word,
Tim Norton SVD
Provincial