The founder of Sant’Egidio said on Famiglia Cristiana: “we must convene an ecumenical council of European Christians. The Churches can not remain prisoners of institutional logics or politics of their countries. No to walls; welcoming is a duty”
The founder of the Sant’Egidio Community, Andrea Riccardi – underlining the urgent message that we must welcome those who knock on the doors of Europe, represented by the Pope’s planned visit to Lesbos next week, home of patriarch Constantinople and the Archbishop of Athens – launches on the columns of Famiglia Cristiana, the idea of an ecumenical synod of European Christians on the issue of refugees: “the European Churches can not remain prisoners of institutional logic or politics of their countries, without a vision of the future. I wonder if this is not the time for a meeting of European Christians, an ecumenical synod to address the major issue of refugees and Europe.”
For Riccardi, who recalls the words of Pope Francis against the “walls,” welcoming immigrants “is a duty,” but also “a gift” for the serious demographic crisis in Europe.