Pope’s Lesbos visit to stress solidarity with locals and refugees

Pope Francis travels to Lesbos on Saturday – not to publicly criticise the manner in which Europe has handled the migration crisis, but as a "humanitarian and ecumenical" initiative on the Greek island that has become the front line of that crisis.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi offered that comment in a news conference yesterday, in response to the suggestion that the pope's five- hour solidarity visit to Lesbos might be interpreted as a criticism of EU governance.

“There is no criticism intended here,” he said. “ This is a situation in which a lot of people are suffering, a situation for which solutions have not been found . . . The inspiration for his visit is above all humanitarian and ecumenical.”

Discussing the visit during his Wednesday general audience, Pope Francis also emphasised “solidarity”.

“I travel to Lesbos to express my closeness and solidarity, both to the refugees and to the citizens of Lesbos and to the whole Greek people, who have been so generous in receiving” asylum seekers.

This 13th overseas visit of the Francis pontificate will be one of the shortest, lasting less than five hours. To some extent, it mirrors the pope’s first visit outside Rome when, in May 2013, he travelled to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, another front-line migration arrival point into Europe.

Overtly political

The pope will be greeted in Lesbos by Greek prime minister

Alexis Tsipras

, but there will be no overtly “political” dimension to his visit.

Rather he will be accompanied by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, and by Hieronymus II, Archbishop of Athens and primate of the Orthodox Church of Greece.

The pope’s day in Lesbos will consist of a visit to the refugee camp of Moria, followed by a meeting with the Catholic community and Lesbos citizens in order to recall the memory of all those “boat people” forced into migration, sometimes dying on their journeys.

Asked if the pope's speeches in Lesbos might contain some criticism of the EU's handling of migration, especially in relation to the EU-Turkey deportation deal, Fr Lombardi again suggested that the visit was one of "Christian solidarity".

“If the pope goes on to say [critical] things, then good,” he added. “But I cannot tell you anything about that. Don’t ask me to put words in the pope’s mouth”.