Freedom of Movement: "Free to choose whether to migrate or to stay"

The website of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development of the Holy See has published an indication of the theme for the 2023 World Day of Migrants and Refugees:

The 109th World Day of Migrants and Refugees will be celebrated on Sunday, 24 September 2023. The Holy Father has chosen as the title for his traditional Message, “Free to choose whether to migrate or to stay”, with the intention of fostering renewed reflection on a right that has not yet been codified at the international level: the right not to have to migrate or, in other words, the right to be able to remain in one’s own land.

The fact that many persons are forced to migrate demands a careful consideration of the causes of contemporary migration. The right to remain is older, more deeply rooted and broader than the right to migrate. It includes the possibility of sharing in the common good, the right to live in dignity and to have access to sustainable development. All of these rights should be effectively guaranteed in the nations of origin through a real exercise of shared responsibility on the part of the international community.

 The theme is more fully developed in a paper of the Dicastery from December 2022 entitled The "right" not to have to emigrate. In encouraging local Churches to work with the authorities of their countries and regions in order to alleviate the inequalities that might drive peoples to migrate, this paper notes that the decision to emigrate is not always one that is made with freedom:

While violence, conflict, and climate change contribute most significantly to involuntary migration, economic development is also a major factor. Some regions of the world are more privileged than others, and within each society, access to the common good – work, health, education, welfare – is not always guaranteed. In the absence of opportunities for personal and family fulfillment, migration sometimes emerges as the only truly possible choice.

 There are two points here that I find of interest. The first is that the inability to take a proper part in the economic and social life of a country provides a driver in favour of migration that is just as legitimate as is persecution, a driver that represents a constrained choice rather than a free choice. The right to freedom of movement within one's own country, and the right to leave from and return to that country, enshrined in Article 13 of the UN Universal Declaration, has in part an intention of enabling such migration.

The second point is that, though the intention of the theme chosen for the 2023 World Day of Migrants and Refugees is to focus on creating awareness of what needs to be done so that people have a genuinely free choice with regard to staying in their own country, it also recognises a right to choose to migrate, and a desire that the exercise of such a choice may be made with freedom rather than constraint.

The implication of this for Governments is that they should be willing to commit resources to the integral development of people in less developed nations; and where they are not able to do this, to make provision for the consequent migration.

Pope Francis on two signs of the times

There are a couple of things said by Pope Francis in recent months that have caught my attention, though they are only one part of a more wide ranging speech. The first comes from Pope Francis' address to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See at the beginning of January (I have added the italics):

The diminished effectiveness of many international organizations is also due to their members entertaining differing visions of the ends they wish to pursue. Not infrequently, the centre of interest has shifted to matters that by their divisive nature do not strictly belong to the aims of the organization. As a result, agendas are increasingly dictated by a mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity and the cultural roots that constitute the identity of many peoples. As I have stated on other occasions, I consider this a form of ideological colonization, one that leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the “cancel culture” invading many circles and public institutions. Under the guise of defending diversity, it ends up cancelling all sense of identity, with the risk of silencing positions that defend a respectful and balanced understanding of various sensibilities. A kind of dangerous “one-track thinking” [pensée unique] is taking shape, one constrained to deny history or, worse yet, to rewrite it in terms of present-day categories, whereas any historical situation must be interpreted in the light of a hermeneutics of that particular time, not that of today.

The wording is, as one might expect of its context, couched in a diplomatic way; but I think Pope Francis' intention is clear. And it is not only international organisations that have come to be taken up by an LGBT+ agenda that does not really belong to their aims; there are many trade unions, commercial enterprises, and employers that have allowed the same to happen to them. By speaking out against a "mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity" - that is, a mindset that denies the nature of human persons as biologically male or female - Pope Francis allows others to take up that conversation in the public realm. There is also a useful warning about the nature of identity. Today it seems a truism that the LGBT+ person should be able to express that identity in their lives, and there is some merit in this when it is considered at the level of the individual person. But when viewed at the level of society as a whole, where the question is one about the impact for others, Pope Francis warns about an undermining of all sense of identity affecting society as a whlole. We have yet to really see how this works out in the years to come, as a younger generation grows up with a predominance of this mindset.

The second observation came during Pope Francis' visit to Malta, when he met with the diplomatic corps, the local authorities and representatives of civil society. Again, I have added the italics.

If the complexity of the migration issue is to be properly addressed, it needs to be situated within a broader context of time and space.  Time, in the sense that the migration phenomenon is not a temporary situation, but a sign of our times.  It brings with it the burden of past injustice, exploitation, climatic changes and tragic conflicts, whose effects are now making themselves felt.  From the poor and densely populated south, great numbers of people are moving to the wealthy north: this is a fact, and it cannot be ignored by adopting an anachronistic isolationism, which will not produce prosperity and integration. From the standpoint of space, the growing migration emergency — here we can think of the refugees from war-torn Ukraine — calls for a broad-based and shared response.  Some countries cannot respond to the entire problem, while others remain indifferent onlookers! 

What has caught my attention here is the suggestion that the question of migration is a permanent feature of our times, and a feature that should not be considered as limited to certain countries and not others. In other words, an accomodation of migrants should be of the essential make up of more prosperous societies, both in a legal sense and in the provisions of actors in civil society.