Migrants not just social issue - pope

(ANSA) - Vatican City, July 8 - Migrants are people and not a social issue, Pope Francis said Monday.
    "Migrants are persons, it's not just a question of social or migratory issues!," he said at a Mass for migrants and their rescuers marking the sixth anniversary of his historic visit to Lampedusa.
    "It's not just a matter of migrants. In the double sense that migrant are first of all human persons, and that today they are the symbol of all those discarded by globalised society".
    The pope went on to say that migrants must be helped and that no one could duck doing this.
    "The weakest and the most vulnerable must be helped"," he said.
    "This is a great responsibility, which no one can shirk." It is God Himself, the pope said, who revealed the "need for a preferential options for the last ones, who must be put in first place in the exercise of charity".