Hospitality
“You have gathered here, at this very place where something happened, one week ago, which ended in the most tragic and shocking way and should remain engraved on our consciences and make us reflect continuously on the way we respond to the big challenges of our time”. Monsignor Valerio Lazzeri, Bishop of Lugano, said this to the participants in the prayer vigil that was held at Balerna train station (Canton of Ticino) yesterday evening in remembrance of the migrant who was found dead on a train from Lugano to Bellinzona on 27 February 2017. “His thirst for life, for the future and for happiness made him blind to the danger he was exposing himself to. Yet his death does not speak to us of a youth’s imprudent action; rather, it puts before our eyes, in a concrete and disturbing way, the abyss that exists between the dreams of those who look at our world from outside, from a situation of exclusion, war, poverty and injustice, and the fact that it is very hard for us to open the doors of our homes, just to listen to and accept the cry of the desperate”. The image of his cruel death – Mgr. Lazzeri concluded – moves us to be more sensitive and pay more attention to this unfolding tragedy, so that we may find human words and gestures, constructive ideas and projects of solidarity and, at all levels, a more conscious, dignified and concerted response, both human and civic, to what is happening even in our country”.
