“Refugees, poverty, war — isn't that politics rather than religion?”

🔥The question: “Shouldn't the Church concentrate on the salvation of souls and the Mass and stay out of social problems?”

🛡️The Church's answer: The Gospel does not stop at consoling an individual heart; it throws light on hunger, war, injustice, migration and human dignity. The Church has to protect the lives and basic rights of refugees and migrants, give priority to the poor, and speak up for the prevention of war, the protection of civilians and a just peace. At the same time, the state has the right and the responsibility to make reasonable policy for the common good and for security, so several prudential judgments are possible about the concrete means.

🎨An analogy — praying while walking past the injured man at the roadside

To pass by an injured neighbor because you are hurrying to worship pulls prayer and love apart. Love of God shows itself in the act of caring for the person in front of you.

The analogy shows that worship and love of neighbor cannot be pried apart from each other. It is not an analogy that makes any one policy automatically the right answer, and how help is actually given has to weigh safety, the common good and the rights of the people concerned together.

🧐If they press further: “Does that mean opening all the borders?” — The Church's principle is not an unconditional slogan. The right to be protected from danger to life, family and human dignity, a state's capacity to receive people and the common good, and the root causes of migration all have to be considered together. What is refused is the hatred that calls people nothing but criminals or numbers, and collective punishment.

✨In one sentence: “Faith doesn't avoid social problems, and while the Church recognizes a range of concrete policies, it still has to protect the dignity and the lives of the poor, of refugees and of the victims of war.”