The Church has always proclaimed her unwavering option for life. In every person—stranger or neighbour, migrant or citizen—there shines the image of God. To affirm life is to affirm dignity, fraternity, and the bonds that make us truly human. Yet our world too often seeks to manipulate life, treating it as something to be controlled, commodified, or discarded.
The scriptures remind us of another path. Abraham, sitting at the door of his tent in the heat of the day, became a model of hospitality [Genesis 18]. Tradition tells us his tent had four doors, so that travellers could enter from any direction. For Abraham, to welcome was not an obligation but the very expression of his faith: he opened his home, gave food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and dignity to all. His life teaches us that to welcome is to sustain life.
Israel’s memory of migration also shaped its ethics. “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you too were strangers in Egypt” [Exodus 22:20]. When abundance tempted them to arrogance, Moses reminded the people: “My father was a wandering Aramaean” [Deuteronomy 26:5]. To forget one’s own vulnerability leads to hardness of heart; to remember it inspires compassion and solidarity.
This teaching speaks directly to our times. Migrants and refugees live among us—not as distant figures but as neighbours who ride the same buses, work in our homes, and attend school with our children. How do we regard them? As God’s children, or as burdens to be managed?
It is in this light that Pope Leo XIV recently spoke with unusual clarity on the contradictions often present in debates about life. For the first time in his papacy, he commented on the political discourse in the United States, pointing out the inconsistencies of those who oppose abortion while defending the death penalty or endorsing harsh treatment of immigrants.
“Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion,’ but also says, ‘I am in favour of the death penalty,’ is not really pro-life,” the pope had said. He added that the same principle applies when support for life does not extend to just and humane immigration policies. His intervention was striking for its directness, but it should not surprise us. To be genuinely pro-life is to affirm life in all its forms, from conception to natural death, and in every human circumstance.
Christ himself became a stranger, exiled as an infant in Egypt. Later he identified with the vulnerable: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” [Matthew 25:35]. In welcoming the other, we welcome Christ; in refusing, we reject him. The Christian option for life is therefore not selective, nor shaped by ideology, but total.
To welcome life is to resist its manipulation. It is believed that hope is stronger than fear, fraternity greater than exclusion, and love more powerful than suspicion. Abraham’s open tent, Christ’s open arms, and the Church’s open heart together proclaim: life is always a gift, never a burden to be discarded. jose CMF
