US President Donald Trump's planned
wall with Mexico and his travel ban on six Muslim countries are
"against the values of the Americans and the values of the
Christians," recently elected Jesuit chief Arturo Sosa told ANSA
in an exclusive interview Wednesday.
Trump's proposal to separate children from their illegal
immigrant mothers, he added, "is against the roots of American
society, and let's say humanity".
Father Sosa, elected the Jesuits' 31st Superior General in
October, added: "It seems to me that President Trump is trying
on the one hand to profit from these fears and uncertainty and
afterwards it seems to me that it is a non-recognition of the
history of the United States and the current situation of the
United States".
Sosa, whose order includes Pope Francis, said: "Mexico, if we
try to measure what is the contribution of Mexicans, of Mexican
workers, of Mexican farm hands, to the economy of the United
States, I think it should be the opposite, we should open the
wall and be grateful, we should thank a society which is capable
of sharing this, improving other people's lives".
As for separating children from their mothers, Sosa recalled
that "we used to criticise the Soviet Union for doing that, and
now we want to repeat it?".
Sosa went on to say that the policy of walls against migrants
in Europe and elsewhere is "inhumane and
useless".
"This has been shown in...the situation of these people
coming to seek asylum, who arrive at frontiers on foot, or cross
the Mediterranean, and who risk their lives, many of them losing
their lives: we don't know how many thousands are at the bottom
of the Mediterranean.
"So walls are inhumane. Then, the intention of closing is
useless, because there are so many holes in any wall you put up.
You only create a tenser situation."
Sosa added: "you create more problems and crises".
He said "fear is a sensation that is very closely linked to
insecurity and ignorance. And fear among human beings ends when
I really encounter another person, when I get to know him, when
I see his face, when I see he is a person like me..who needs my
help".
Sosa went on to say that "trying to identify Islam with
terrorism is madness.
"Because there are millions of Muslims of good faith
and people of great humanity who are Muslims. And there are
terrorists of Muslim religion, atheists, and even Christians.
"And so to try to make this identification between a
religion or a race and terrorism seems to me really a
manipulation of such a complex phenomenon as terrorism at this
time in the world. And in this way you don't find a way of
combatting it effectively".
Finally, Sosa hailed moves to achieve global gender parity,
on International Women's Day, which fell on Wednesday.
"When you make any study on poverty, it always highlights how
poverty hits women and children more than the rest of the
population," he said.
"So it seems to me that if we really want to try to reconcile
humanity with justice, the first thing is to have special care
for women.
"Women at all levels: young, old, mothers, not mothers".
Explaining his participation in the Vatican Women's Day
event, Voices of Faith, dedicated to female voices in
humanitarian and peace fields, Sosa said gender parity was an
"essential point in humanity".
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