WESTERN COUNTRIES MUST WELCOME IMMIGRANTS, POPE SAYS

WESTERN COUNTRIES MUST WELCOME IMMIGRANTS, POPE SAYS

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 28 - Pope Benedict XVI on Friday urged Western countries to welcome immigrants, stressing that that integration enriches societies.

It was the umpteenth appeal by the 83-year-old pontiff for laws to promote and foster immigration and integration.

Addressing the plenary session of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, the pope said laws must favour " reception and integration, allowing opportunities for legal entry, favouring the just right to family reunification, asylum and refuge, compensating necessary restrictive measures and combating the scourge of human trafficking".

He suggested that countries and international organisations cooperate "in various ways" to ensure "the recognition of the rights of the person and the principle of national sovereignty, with specific reference to the demands of security, public order and border control".

The future of our societies rests on relations between peoples, seen as a "dialogue between cultures that respects the identity of legitimate differences," he said.

Speaking in April, the pope appealed to the international community to make concerted efforts to deal with immigration issues.

The German pontiff said a solution to the problems posed by the influx of illegal migrants must be found through "perseverance and persistency and with measures decided on an international level".

In an address to the Vatican's World Congress on Migrants in November, he stressed that migration be seen as an opportunity rather than a problem.

Benedict said migration was ''a bigger issue than ever before, both in terms of size and complexity''.

''Many migrants leave their countries to escape living conditions that are humanly unacceptable but without finding the welcome they hope for elsewhere''.