Church must be a welcoming home to migrants, pope tells Filipinos

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Immigrants who arrive in a new country and face obstacles and difficulty should find in the Catholic Church a welcoming home and ready assistance, Pope Francis said.

Meeting representatives of the Filipino Catholic community in Spain, the pope commented on the choice of calling their center in Madrid "Tahanan," the Filipino word for home.

"And it is true, wherever we go, the church is always a home for us," he said, "a warm, welcoming home."

The Tahanan center is located at the Madrid Church of Our Lady of the Thorns, which, the pope said, "makes me think of so many migrants who, far from finding that warm and welcoming home, encounter an infinite number of difficulties and misunderstandings that rise up like thorns against them."

And, yet, like the 14th-century vision of Mary standing on a thorn bush, the origin of Our Lady of the Thorns, "Our blessed Mother presents herself to us on those thorns, so that we do not lose hope, and we are able to face the problems, confident in her protection and shelter."

But the group made the pilgrimage to Rome to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Filipino parish in Barcelona: the parish of the Immaculate Conception and St. Lorenzo Ruiz, a Filipino martyred in 1637.

St. Lorenzo "is a beautiful figure," the pope said, partly because he "speaks to us of the integration of cultures. His family, like that of Cardinal (Luis Antonio) Tagle, had Chinese and Filipino ancestry and, together with the Spanish who gave him the faith, created an excellent mix."

Falsely accused of killing a Spaniard, he was forced "to leave his homeland due to injustice" just "like many people who still today are forced to emigrate to save their lives or seek a better future," the pope said. "And when he finally arrived in the land that should have welcomed him (Japan), God asked him to witness his faith with the greatest proof of love, to give his life" rather than renouncing his faith.

Pope Francis asked the Filipinos to trust in Jesus "without ever losing hope" and to serve anyone who comes to them in need. "In this way we will be able to build our 'tahanan,' that welcoming and warm home that, like a mother, our church should be."