On Friday in Marseille, France, the Pope led a moment of silence and a time of reflection with religious leaders near a memorial dedicated to sailors and migrants lost at sea.
The cross of the memorial, the Camargue cross, represents the theological virtues: the three tridents being faith, the heart being charity, and the anchor being hope.
1Don’t make people into numbers
Let us not get used to considering shipwrecks as news stories, and deaths at sea as numbers: no, they are names and surnames, they are faces and stories, they are broken lives and shattered dreams. I think of so many brothers and sisters drowned in fear, along with the hopes they carried in their hearts. Faced with such a drama, we need deeds, not words. Before that, however, we need to show some humanity: We need silence, weeping, compassion and prayer. I now invite you to spend a moment of silence in memory of these brothers and sisters of ours: Let us be moved by their tragedies. [Moment of silence]