After the shipwreck blind emotion in Cutro: between Via Crucis for the dead and inhumanity to the survivors
Can they ever forgive us?
For Pope Francis, the 2023 Way of the Cross is addressed to the victims of Cutro, in Calabria, and to the thousands of men, women and children who, fleeing from wars, hunger, oppression and violence, have so far lost their lives in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, too many times and often only a few hundred metres from Italian shores.
Photo: www.vaticannews.va
On Sunday, 5 March, more than a thousand people took part in the Way of the Cross organised by the Migrantes and Liturgical Offices of the Archdiocese of Crotone-Santa Severina held at Steccato di Cutro, the site of the migrants’ shipwreck on Sunday, 26 February. The wooden Cross was made from beams recovered from the wreck destroyed by the waves.
Phto: www.avvenire.it/attualita
“We wanted to make this cross,” said Don Francesco Loprete, parish priest of Le Castella di Isola Caporizzuto, “to remember the many innocent people who died in the shipwreck. This drama will never be erased from our minds. After two thousand years, Christ is still on the cross’.
Photo:www.avvenire.it
The Way of the Cross was attended by the archbishop of Crotone-Santa Severina, Angelo Raffaele Panzetta, and the iman of the Cutro mosque, Mustafa Achik. Many religious and civil authorities were present: the archbishop of Cosenza Giovanni Cecchinato, the bishop of Lamezia Terme Serafino Parisi, several mayors and parish priests from the diocese of Crotone. There was also a delegation of firemen and carabinieri. The Cross was carried by the faithful, with the last stretch on the beach entrusted to the mayors. (Source: www.avvenire.it)
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CROTONE- SANTA SEVERA
ALSO YESTERDAY INVOKED
"HUMANITY IS NEEDED"
Photo: www.vaticannews.va
“I won’t hide from you that as soon as I stepped onto the beach, in front of the gazebo under which so many white sacks with people inside were piled up, I knelt down there too. A necessity of the heart. I am truly the flesh of Christ.” This is what Archbishop Panzetta told Avvenire newspaper yesterday. (Source: https://www.avvenire.it).
Photo: www.informazione.it
NEXT TO THE WAY OF THE CROSS A WAY…
OF LIFE IS URGENTLY NEEDED FOR THE SURVIVORS AFFECTED BY FURTHER NOLIMITS INHUMANITY:
MURDERED…almost like MURDERED….
THE SURVIVORS ARE STRANDED...
... "in a makeshift hotspot with half the beds they would need, the others sleeping on benches. Women and minors among the adult men. A shared bathroom. Peeling walls, no heating. No sheets. No closed shoes.
WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR A FURTHER OUTRAGE
As if they had not survived a terrible tragedy, we are harbouring them with no respect for the infinite pain that has shattered their lives, their families and their dreams of a future.
Photo: www.avvenire.i
“Once again, the icy chains of bureaucracy get the better of humanity: of the 81 survivors, although all of them were informed of the possibility of doing so, few applied for asylum. They know that Dublin rules oblige them to stay in Italy but almost all of them, Afghans and Syrians in the lead, wish they could go with their loved ones to other European countries. And in the meantime, without asylum seeker status, they remain ‘detained’ in this place of horror adjacent to the Cara, the largest in Europe, which is always overcrowded”. (Source: www.repubblica.it).
Today it is more urgent than ever
a mobilisation of solidarity and responsibility:
#facciamoladifferenzacoimigranti