It was in Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island of 20 square kilometers in the Mediterranean Sea, that Pope Francis, who passed away on Monday, April 21, at the age of 88, had made the first trip of his pontificate on July 8, 2013. And it was from this island near the Tunisian coast, seen as a gateway to Europe, that he condemned the world's "indifference" to the plight of migrants during a mass attended by more than 10,000 people at a small stadium on the island.

"In this world of globalization, we have fallen into a globalization of indifference," he had declared, evoking "migrants who died at sea on these boats that, instead of being a path of hope, became a route toward death." "Let us not allow the mare nostrum to become a desolate mare mortum," he further stated. Since 2014, nearly 32,000 people have disappeared trying to reach the European continent by sea.

"Together, as one human family, we are all migrants," said the pope – the son and grandson of migrants who arrived from Piedmont in Argentina in 1929. "Over the years, he has consistently advocated for a dignified and humane reception of migrants, firmly condemning rejection policies and even calling the systematic attempts to push away migrants a 'grave sin,'" recalled Marcela Villalobos Cid, the pastoral coordinator of networks within the French Bishops' Conference, in a text published in February.

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