"Faces, not numbers": migrants must be "received, accompanied, promoted and integrated“. Pope Francis, receiving Italian prefects in audience yesterday, dwelt on migratory flows with their "delicate management at the local level”. It is a task which is "not easy”, Bergoglio said, "because you entrust to your care wounded people, vulnerable people, often lost and returning from terrible traumas. They are faces, not numbers: people who cannot simply be classified, but who should be embraced; brothers and sisters who need to be removed from the tentacles of criminal organizations, capable of speculating mercilessly on their misfortunes. We have heard about the 'lagers' in some North African countries, where those who want to come to Europe are treated as slaves, tortured, or even killed. To you is given the arduous task of organizing on the territory an orderly reception of them, based on integration and constructive insertion into the local fabric”. According to the Pope, prefects cannot be left alone in the task of supporting migrants "in their essential needs and at the same time to listen to the apprehensions and tensions that may be generated among residents, as well as of course to intervene when situations of disorder and violence arise”. "We must be careful" is the Pope's warning, "Migrants must be received, accompanied, promoted and integrated. If there is not this path to integration, there is danger. And this also makes me think of another problem. Migrants help, when they fit in well. Italy is a land where there is a lack of children, and migrants come. I am concerned about the problem of the low birth rate here in Italy. People are not having children. One of my secretaries who was going through the square the other day was telling me: a lady approached who had a cart with a baby; he went to pet the baby - it was a little dog! Little dogs are in the place of children. Think of this. The responsibility of Italians to have children to raise and also to receive migrants as children”.
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