Catholic bishops in Germany and Austria have urged their countries to continue accepting refugees, despite demands for new restrictions after violence on New Year’s Eve in Cologne and other cities. “We need a reduction in numbers, but fixing an upper limit would be difficult,” Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier told the daily paper Trierischer Volksfreund Jan. 27. “We also need flexibility. But it’s up to politicians to say how this can be achieved in practice, and it can’t be done only at a national level,” he said. Some Germans have called for a cap on refugees, following violent incidents involving people newly arrived from Syria and other countries. Meanwhile, the German church’s special representative for refugees said he believed a cap would violate the Geneva Convention and Germany’s Basic Law. “Christians cannot allow people who’ve faced untold suffering and are needing help to encounter closed borders,” Archbishop Stefan Hesse of Hamburg told German media.
Defending Refugees
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
What is happening to migrants in courtrooms across the country is a complete embarrassment to the justice system and an affront to human dignity.
Being a kid in the summer is all about existing in an eternal present moment, a feeling of freedom and potential that it will never go away.
Father Thomas Hennen, vicar general of the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, has been appointed Bishop of Baker, Oregon.
My writing during these past five years is filled with memories of my long journey with God over a lifetime; but very significantly, it is the expression of my prayer at this later time of my life.