|
Brindisi: Pope Benedict has used a trip to southern Italy to urge Italians, who are embroiled in heated debate on immigration, to show solidarity with the poor and suffering who come to their shores seeking a better life.
The Pope made his appeal during a weekend trip to this southern port city which has for centuries been an arrival point for immigrants and refugees.
"In recent years, newspapers and television have shown us pictures of refugees landing in Brindisi from Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia," he told a crowd in the city centre on Saturday night, thanking the city for its generosity towards them.
In a sermon at an open-air Mass in the port where immigrants from the Balkans arrived in large numbers in the 1990s, Benedict returned to the theme of compassion for those in need.
|
