I recently read a reflection by Don Fabio Rosini in his latest book: The art of caring (the art of healing). The Roman priest affirmed -applying medical language to the spiritual realm- that most of the time we make the mistake of making a judgment about the symptoms, without getting to the causes that produce the disease.
For years now, we have been carrying a migration crisis that in Europe has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people in the waters of the Mediterranean. Recently we have seen the Belarusian government using migrants as a means of exerting pressure on the border with Poland, or how the English Channel has become a new scene of death.
The problem is endemic and the solution does not seem easy or close. Politics is entangled in a rhetoric made up of accusations against the other side, while millions of euros are allocated to third countries to contain the migratory advance.
And, in spite of everything, we do not find the diagnosis, because we are so focused on alleviating the symptoms that we fail to find the cause. Perhaps because it is not simple and requires a high cost. Pope Francis had no qualms about stating it in the form of a question mark during his visit to the refugee camp in Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, on December 5: "Why [...] do we not talk about the exploitation of the poor, or the forgotten and often generously financed wars, or the economic deals that are made at the expense of people, or the hidden maneuvers to traffic arms and proliferate their trade? Why do we not talk about this?".
The Pontiff encouraged the confrontation of remote causes and concerted, far-sighted action. And he launched a heart-wrenching plea: do not turn the mare nostrum at mare mortuum. "Let's stop this wreck of civilization!"
