Human migration, inclusivity and fraternity: Ideas and ideals for Ukraine

Human migration, inclusivity and fraternity: Ideas and ideals for Ukraine

5 October 2021, Lviv, Ukraine – H.E.Card. Michael Czerny SJ, Undersecretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section, took part in Ecumenical Social Week organized by the Catholic University of Lviv, Ukraine. The university’s Institute of Ecumenical Studies has chosen for this year’s event the theme “Promoting the Common Good: Toward Sustainable Development.” 

“The culture of exclusion is readily seen in the phenomenon of migration. Because migrants come from many origins, they introduce cultural, linguistic, religious diversity. It becomes easy to divide “us” from “them” and to justify excluding “them” from “our” circle. The masks we learned to use during the pandemic, should teach us about unhelpful masks. These are façades and stereotypes “with which we camouflage our egos, always worrying about appearances.” Let these fall away, “revealing once more the ineluctable and blessed awareness that we are part of one another, that we are brothers and sisters of one another” (FT 32) with whom we live together in, and care together for, our common home.” 


Read the speech of H.E.Card. Michael Czerny in full here: Human migration, inclusivity and fraternity: Ideas and ideals for Ukraine