Poland’s Catholic church has called for hospitality and respect for refugees and warned against stoking hostility towards them. Its statement comes in response to a recent surge in migrants – mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan – seeking to cross the border from Belarus, and efforts by the authorities to stop them doing so.
“The humanitarian and evangelical reaction to problems associated with migrants and refugees” outweighs legal concerns, wrote the Polish Episcopal Conference (KEP), the central organ of the Catholic church in Poland. “Hospitality to strangers is one of the determinants of our faith.”
“Understandable concern for our own citizens” does not justify closing borders, while “stoking resentment and hostility to newcomers finding themselves in a dramatic situation is a wicked act”, adds the statement, signed by Bishop Krzysztof Zadarko, head of the KEP’s migration, tourism and pilgrimage council.
“Indifference is not an authentically Christian attitude” and we must help “those in need, taking on the mission of the Good Samaritan”, says the episcopate.
“We are aware of the complexity of the geopolitical circumstances resulting in the current migration processes,” the KEP notes. But “we are certain that those responsible for abiding by the law will fully respect international obligations towards people seeking protection”.
The Polish government and the European Union have accused Belarus of deliberately facilitating border crossings in an effort to provoke tension in EU countries. Poland has dispatched the army to the border and erected 150 kilometres of barbed-wire fencing.
In its statement, the church notes that governments have the right to take action against illegal immigration, but that they must “respect human rights” when doing so.
It also warns that “human dramas may not become an instrument for arousing xenophobic moods, especially in the name of falsely understood patriotism that abases people coming from another region of the world, culture or religion.”
In the document, the episcopate recalls Poland’s own difficult history and notes that its people received support and refuge from other countries and peoples:
Inducing fear of other people is inhuman and un-Christian. Our ancestors were emigrants and refugees during the partitions, in the Second World War and at the time of communism. They experienced help from people of other cultures and religions. To refuse newcomers their fundamental rights is to turn away from out own history and deny our Christian heritage.
During the migration crisis of 2015, when attitudes in Poland hardened against the reception of refugees, the Catholic church also called for compassion and hospitality. The head of the KEP, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, said at the time that “every parish should prepare a place for those who are persecuted and come here expecting help”.
Though thousands of migrants have been seeking to cross into Poland from Belarus in recent weeks, much attention has focused on the fate of a group of Afghans who set up a makeshift camp on the border, with Polish border guards preventing them from entering and Belarusian ones stopping them from turning back.
Poland’s border guard yesterday reported that over half the group had now been removed by the Belarusian authorities. The Ocalenie Foundation, a Polish NGO which has been trying to help the refugees, said that there were only around 10 people left in the group, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.
Main image credit: BP KEP/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
