Moral responsibility to receive migrants - Pope Francis

(ANSA) - Vatican City, December 13 - Pope Francis said Thursday that the international community has a "moral responsibility" to receive migrants. "In this year the international community has celebrated the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights," the pope said as he received 10 new ambassadors to the Holy See. "This foundational document continues to guide the efforts of global diplomacy to secure peace in our world and to promote the integral development of each individual and all peoples. The two goals are in fact inseparable. "In its very first words, the Declaration states that, 'recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world'.
    "In these times of sweeping social and political change, there can be no lessening of the commitment to this principle on the part of governments and peoples. "It is essential that respect for human dignity and human rights inspire and direct every effort to address the grave situations of war and armed conflict, crushing poverty, discrimination and inequality that afflict our world, and in recent years have issued in the present crisis of mass migration. "No effective humanitarian solution to that pressing global issue (of mass migration) can ignore our moral responsibility, with due regard for the common good, to welcome, protect, promote and integrate those who knock at our doors in search of a secure future for themselves and their children,"