JRS and Italian Islamic Community call for culture of welcome

(Vatican Radio) In occasion of the UN International Day of Peace on September 21, and at a time in which war and persecution have driven over 65 million people from their homes worldwide, the Jesuit Refugee Service and the Religious Islamic Community of Italy have joined to appeal for a culture of welcome.

In a statement released this week they are calling upon governments, religious institutions and people of good-will to work together to tackle the root causes of forced migration, to share the responsibility of providing protection for refugees, to ensure good reception conditions and access on arrival, and to recognize diversity as an opportunity - not a threat.

JRS International Advocacy Coordinator, Amaya Valcarcel, told Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni the appeal has particular resonance in this Holy Year of Mercy:

Listen: 

Amaya Valcarcel says that all JRS members work under the principle of “working for others and for all peoples regardless of religion, race, ethnic background”.

“We work – she explains – under the principle of impartiality, which for us Christians is the principle of universal love”.

And quoting from the Gospel of Matthew she says Jesus tells us ‘I was thirsty and you gave me water, I was a stranger and you welcomed me’ she points out he didn’t say ‘I was a Hebrew or a Judean stranger’ and this, she says, is the basis of JRS’s response: working for all people.

Valcarcel speaks of the work JRS is carrying out in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo where it is distributing food baskets to people of all backgrounds.

She highlights the fact that the way JRS works sows a seed of reconciliation in Syria because it involves groups of young people, many of them volunteers who are Muslims and Christians.

“It really is not an issue for them, the criteria is that we work together for the most vulnerable people” she says.

This seed of reconciliation, she points out  “leads us to organize and articulate the work – in communications and in advocacy – in an interfaith perspective”.       

And this interfaith perspective, Valcarcel explains, is the base for the just-released statement which JRS issued together with the Islamic Communities of Italy and with the Imam Yahya Pallavicini (Vice President and imam of the Italian CO.RE.IS.  - Italian Islamic Religious Community).

She says JRS has an excellent relationship with the Imam and is in dialogue with his organization:  “we are happy to learn from each other”.

Valcarcel says the statement, subtitled ‘An inter-religious statement on behalf of forced migrants’ reflects the question of peace and the common values Christianity and Islam share, including the value of mercy – which in this Holy Year of Mercy – is clearly a shared value.   

But, she says “we are also reflecting on the value of hospitality: at this time in which we are seeing the response of governments and of nationalistic movements which are making an effort to build walls rather than offering access to asylum and hospitality”.

“We think this is our main message to the world: that we together, as religious leaders and religious people, think the value of hospitality is an added value today, and that refugees need it as they need water or food – they need warmth, they need to feel they are welcomed” she says.

Valcarcel says the statement is especially directed to governments but also to all religious people.

“We are also seeing tendencies in some religious groups which are against this principle of impartiality” and are perhaps helping some rather than others, she says.

And she reiterates the principle that Christianity is not in opposition to other faiths, but as the Society of Jesus is saying in another recently published statement: Christianity stands not in opposition but in dialogue and in the process of learning from one another.

Valcarcel says Pope Francis is JRS’s best advocate, “it is clear he has refugees in his heart, and he has a sense of urgency”.

We are seeing a lot of declarations now days – Valcarcel says – but what refugees need is “today: access to protection, access to food and not another declaration in two years’ time”.