“The Successor of Peter cannot ignore these landings. The Church cannot ignore these waters.” With these words, Pope Leo XIV opened his June 11 meeting with migrant reception organizations at the Port of Arguineguín, on Gran Canaria, one of the main points of entry along the Atlantic migration route to Europe. Speaking before rescue workers, Caritas volunteers, and survivors of sea crossings, the Pontiff said that the Gospel “pulls Christians out of the comfortable position of spectators” and called for safe migration routes, action against human trafficking networks, and policies that also guarantee, in countries of origin, the right not to have to migrate.

Addressing victims of exploitation in particular, such as Blessing, a Nigerian survivor of trafficking for sexual exploitation, Leo XIV was direct: “No one can buy you, sell you, use you, or discard you.” He summarized the appeal of the entire journey in a sentence that echoed through news reports around the world: “We cannot become accustomed to counting the dead. Human dignity has no passport, nor does it lose its value when crossing a border.”

Thousands of miles away, in Varjão, an administrative region of Brasília known for its high concentration of immigrants, that same conviction already guides the daily work of a Vincentian Conference. This is how Vincentian Paulo Sérgio do Nascimento describes it. A Vincentian for 28 years, he is president of the Our Lady Mother of Migrants Conference and is responsible for “Special Works” within the Divine Holy Spirit Central Council of Brasília (CCDES).

When the Church Is the First Door

The story began in 2019, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the first Venezuelan families started arriving in Varjão. “As is usually the case, the first place they seek out is the Catholic Church, asking for some kind of help because they do not know anyone in the area,” Paulo explains. Many of these families arrived on unauthorized buses from Pacaraima, in the state of Roraima, on the border with Venezuela, “in conditions of extreme poverty, with only the clothes on their backs and a small backpack.” Whenever Father Norbey Londoño Buitrago, the Colombian priest in charge of the Mother of Migrants Chapel, was approached for help, the response was always the same: “Call a Vincentian!”

With no shelter available in the region, the first families were welcomed into the homes of the Conference’s Vincentians. Women and children slept inside the houses, while the men slept in hammocks hung in the backyards. Then came the rental homes: landlords who were reluctant to rent to foreigners would agree only “if the Vincentians took responsibility.” This is how the first temporary shelters came into being. They eventually housed as many as three families at the same time and were gradually equipped with a stove, gas cylinder, refrigerator, table and chairs, mattresses, bedding, and kitchen utensils. Everything was donated and collected through churches and local businesses.

Seven years later, the Conference assists migrants of many nationalities: primarily Venezuelans and Africans, but also Syrians, Bolivians, Chileans, Cubans, and one Ukrainian family, as well as two Venezuelan journalists and Reuters correspondents who had to seek refuge in Brazil. In the area, the SSVP works in partnership with the Institute for Migration and Human Rights (IMDH), an organization of the Scalabrinian Sisters founded by Sister Rosita Milesi, who was honored in Geneva by UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Dignity That Crosses Borders

Among the people assisted, one case had a particularly profound impact on the confrere: that of a Syrian family consisting of an elderly mother and her two daughters, who did not speak Portuguese and required simultaneous translation into Arabic. They lived for three months in the home of a female Vincentian from the Conference. According to the account shared by Paulo, the family arrived in Brazil suffering from the aftereffects of chemical burns caused by anthrax during the Syrian civil war.

Following attacks attributed to the army of dictator Bashar al-Assad, they were driven from their home and the family was separated: the father and one of the daughters went to Russia, while other family members went to Warsaw. One of the daughters became a cellist with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. During an orchestra tour in Argentina, with support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Federal Police, the daughter was able to reunite with her mother in Brasília.

“The reunion was deeply moving. Even we Vincentians broke down in tears at that moment,” Paulo Sérgio recalls.

Treatment for the burns was supported by the Greek Orthodox Church of Goiânia, which fully covered the cost of care at the city’s burn hospital.

Ricaella Inocente
Source: https://www.ssvpbrasil.org.br/