Pope Francis is an enemy of the people of Europe and North America

" I was a foreigner". This word made me "noise" when you said it ... It's easier to welcome a stranger than to be welcomed, and you have to do both. You must teach, help welcome the stranger, and give all the possibilities to the nations that have everything or enough to use these four words that you have said. How to welcome a foreigner. The Word of God strikes me so much: already in the Old Testament it underlines this: to welcome the stranger, "because you remember that you have been a stranger". It is true that today there is a wave of closure towards the foreigner, and there are also many situations of trafficking of foreign people: the foreigner is exploited. I am a child of migrants, and I remember in the post-war period - I was a boy of 10/12 years - when, where Dad worked, the Poles arrived to work, all migrants; and how well they were welcomed. Argentina has this experience of welcoming because there was work and it was also needed. And Argentina - for my experience - is a cocktail of migratory waves, you know it better than me. Because migrants build a country; how they built Europe. Because Europe was not born this way, Europe has been made by many waves of migration over the centuries.

Once you used a bad word: "well-being". But wellbeing is suicidal, because it leads you to two things. To close the doors, so that they do not disturb you: only those people who serve for my well-being can enter. And on the other hand, for well-being, do not be fruitful. And today we have this drama: a demographic winter and a closing of doors. This must help us to understand this problem a bit about receiving the stranger: yes, he is a stranger, he is not one of us, he is one who comes from outside. But how do you welcome someone who is a stranger? And this is the work you do and help you do: to form consciences to do it well. And I thank you for this.

But there is the other dimension. We are not the masters who say: "Ah, you, if you are foreigners, come". No. We are foreigners too. And if we do not try to be welcomed by people, those who are migrants and those who are not, another part is missing in our conscience: we will become the "masters", the masters of immigration, those who know more of migrations. No. You need to have this experience in your religious experience: to be you too migrants, at least cultural migrants. This is why I have always liked, in your training itinerary, the fact of making the students turn around: doing theology here, the philosophy there ..., so that they can learn about different cultures. Being a foreigner. And this is very important. From the experience of having been a foreigner, for studies or for destinations, the knowledge of how a foreigner is welcomed grows.

These two things, these two directions are very important, and you have to do them well. This is the first thing I wanted to say.

She also used another word: to pray . The migrant prays. Pray because you need so many things. And pray in his own way, but pray. A danger for all of us, men and women of the Church, but for you more, for your vocation, it would not need prayer. "Yes, yes, I think, I study, I do, but I do not know how to beg, I can not ask to be welcomed by the Lord as I am also migrant to the Lord". This is why I liked it when he spoke of prayer: prayer that is so often boring, or brings anguish to you. But stand before the Lord and knock on the door, as the migrant does, knocking on the door. How did that "migrant" in Israel - the Syro-Phoenician woman - who also managed to discuss with the Lord (cf. Mt.15,21-28). Knock at the door of prayer. To be migrants in the experience of migration, as you do in destinations, and to be migrants in prayer, knocking on the door to be received by the Lord: this is a very important help.

And another phenomenon of migrants - let's think of the caravan that goes from Honduras to the United States - is to pile up . The migrant usually tries to go in groups. Sometimes it has to go alone, but it is normal to pile up, because we feel stronger in migration. And there is the community. In football there is the possibility of a "free", that can move according to the opportunities, but from you there is no possibility, the "free" from you fail. Always the community. Always in the community, because your vocation is precisely for migrants who pile up. Feel migrants. Feel, yes, migrants facing needs, migrants before the Lord, migrants among you. And for this the need to pile up.

These three things came to my mind while you spoke. These ideas that maybe can help you. Thank you for everything you do. You are an example. And you are also brave, because you often go beyond the limits, you risk. And risking is also a characteristic of the migrant. It risks. He also risks life sometimes. And this is something that helps: brave, they can risk. The prudence in you has another shade compared to the prudence of a cloistered monk: they are different prudences. Both virtues, but with different colorings. To risk.

There is still some time. I do not know if anyone wants to ask a few questions to enrich the meeting. Come on!