Pope blasts hostility towards migrants

(ANSA) - Vatican City, January 22 - Pope Francis blasted hostility towards migrants as he compared their plight to that of St Paul when he was shipwrecked on Malta during his weekly general audience on Wednesday.
    "All over the world migrant men and women face risky voyages to escape violence, to escape war, to escape poverty," the head of the Catholic Church said.
    "Just as Paul and his companions experience the indifference, the hostility of the desert, the rivers, the seas.
    "Very often they are not permitted to land in ports. But, unfortunately, sometimes they also encounter the far worse hostility of men. "They are exploited by criminal traffickers. "Today they are treated like numbers and a threat by some rulers.
    "Today. Sometimes inhospitality throws them back, like a wave, towards poverty or the dangers from which they have fled.
    "We, as Christians, must work together to show migrants the love of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. "We can and must testify that there is not only hostility and indifference, but rather that every person is precious to God and loved by Him".