Greek Island of Lesbos

On his way back to Rome from a visit to Lesbos on April 16, Pope Francis gave his usual glib answers to a variety of questions from reporters during an inflight press conference, including communion for the divorced and remarried, immigration, and why he chose to bring three Muslim refugee families back to Italy rather than Christians.

CNA  is reporting on the conference which lasted about 25 minutes and took place after his visit to the Greek island of Lesbos in which he brought back three Syrian Muslim families - including six children - to Italy aboard the same plane. All three families, who were chosen by lottery, lost their homes in bombings that are the result of the ongoing Syrian civil war.

When asked by a reporter why he chose Syrian Muslims and not Christians to bring back to Rome, the Pope said, “I didn’t make a religious choice between Muslims and Christians. These three families had their documents in order. There were, for example, two Christian families who didn’t. This is not a privilege. All 12 of them are children of God.”

Another reporter asked about the pope’s brief exchange earlier in the day with Senator Bernie Sanders, who was staying at Santa Martha along with other members of congress.

“This morning, you met with the presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, at Santa Martha. I wanted to ask you your feelings on the meeting and on your way of approaching North American politics,” asked Ines San Martin of Crux.

“This morning when I walked out, there was Senator Bernie Sanders who came to the congress on ‘Centessimus Annus'," the pope explained. "He knew that I was leaving at that time and he had the courteousness to greet me. I greeted him and his wife, and another couple with him that was staying in Santa Marta, because all of the members of the congress, except the heads of state who I believe were staying in their embassies, were staying at the Santa Martha residence. I gave a greeting and nothing more. A greeting is an educated thing to do and does not mean to be mixed up with politics. If someone thinks that to give a greeting means to get mixed up in politics, I think he needs a psychiatrist.”

When asked about the problems of Muslims not integrating themselves into European society, the Pope said that one of the three pastoral dimensions for families in difficulty is integration into society.

“Today, Europe must take up again this capacity that it has always had: to integrate," the pope said. "With integration, Europe’s culture is enriched. I think that we need an education, a lesson, on a culture of integration.”

He went on to say that “Europe must make a policy of welcoming, integration, growth, work, the reform of the economy. All of these are the bridges that lead us to not making walls.”

The Pope then spoke about the heartbreaking exchanges he had with children in the refugee camps in Lesbos whose drawings featured a drowned child and a sun that cried. “Today was truly to cry about. It was to cry about,” the pope said, because “these children have this in their memories. They’ll need time to remove this from their memories.”

When Frank Rocca of the Wall Street Journal asked the Holy Father if his recent exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia, changed anything for the divorced and remarried, Francis said, “I can say yes . . .” He then told Rocca that he would find the complete answer to his question in the presentation by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn whom he called a “great theologian” and a man who “knows the doctrine of the faith well.”

In this presentation, Cardinal Schonborn says that there is no change in doctrine in the new document, only an “organic development of doctrine” similar to that of John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio. “There is continuity in teaching here, but there is also something really new. There’s a real development [of doctrine], not a rupture,” Schonborn says.

When another reporter asked why the subject of communion for the divorced and remarried was relegated to a footnote in Amoris Laetitia, the pope answered with characteristic candor:

“When I convoked the first synod, the great concern of the majority of the media was communion for the divorced and remarried, and, since I am not a saint, this bothered me, and then made me sad. Because, thinking of those media who said, this, this and that, do you not realize that that is not the important problem? Don’t you realize that instead the family throughout the world is in crisis? Don’t we realize that the falling birth rate in Europe is enough to make one cry? And the family is the basis of society. Do you not realize that the youth don’t want to marry? Don’t you realize that the fall of the birth rate in Europe is to cry about? Don’t you realize that the lack of work or the little work (available) means that a mother has to get two jobs and the children grow up alone? These are the big problems.”

The conference ended on a friendly note with Francis thanking reporters and telling them, “I feel calm with you. Now, they will give you something to eat!”

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