migrants

After praying the Angelus with some 25,000 visitors gathered in St. Peter’s Square March 5, the pope prayed for the victims of a shipwreck off the coast of Cutro in Italy’s southern province of Crotone, which killed at least 70 people Feb. 26.

The Biden administration Feb. 21 proposed its most restrictive border control measure to date, announcing it plans to issue a temporary rule blocking asylum-seekers who cross the border without authorization or who do not first apply for protections in other nations before coming to the United States

The Mass celebrated by Cardinal Wilton Gregory came on the final day of the Jan. 28-31 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering. The meeting addressed workers’ rights, migrants and refugees, housing inequities, hunger and food insecurity, poverty, climate change, systemic racism, gun violence, restorative justice, abortion, domestic violence, and “pro-woman and pro-family policies.”

The Welcome Corps allows applications from private groups formed by five or more people to sponsor refugees for their first 90 days in the U.S.

In its response, the administration asked the Supreme Court to reject the states’ bid to keep the border restriction in place while legal challenges played out.

“The European Union must take in hand a policy of collaboration and help; it cannot leave the responsibility for all the migrants” to the four countries where most arrive by sea: Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain, said Pope Francis.

“It is our duty to encourage and assist our human family — interdependent yet at the same time disconnected — to sail the sea together,” the pope said Nov. 4

In October, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a “parole” program that would welcome up to 24,000 Venezuelans if they applied for entry to the United States but would undergo thorough vetting and had a sponsor who would be economically and otherwise responsible for them in the U.S., among other criteria.