Emigrating is a human right, but before that right to migrate, everyone also has the right to stay where they were born and where they have developed their lives.

The Church, in collaboration with governments and civil society, helps people to become aware of these rights and also to fight to be able to exercise them. Rights do not fall from the sky; we have to claim them. They are the result of personal and community efforts.

Each country must see how to deal with these migratory phenomena, which are not in themselves problems. The problems are war, political persecution, and economic inequality. All of these factors lead to disorder in migration, which could become a permanent phenomenon in the history of humanity, an orderly, regular, and positive issue. | From an interview of Delphine Allaire, Cardinal Lopez Romero: Pope visits Marseille to build peace without borders, Vatican News (September 21, 2023)