"I am being investigated for illegal immigration, that's why the Pope wants me at the Synod" "I wouldn't call myself a Catholic but a Christian.....I don't go to churches"

Luca Casarini at the court of Francis, the activist of Mediterranea Savings Humans: "I am being investigated for illegal immigration, that's why the Pope wants me at the Synod"

Interview with the no-global "special guest" of Francis at the next assembly of bishops: "I'm more Christian than Catholic but nobody saves themselves. The migrants? Our brothers. We need to recover 

"Our chaplain Don Mattia Ferrari telephoned me: you are officially invited by the Pope to the Synod": this is how Luca Casarini tells La Stampa of the summons to the Vatican by the Holy See. Former leader of the no-global movement, Casarini is an activist of Mediterranea Saving Humans, the NGO born in 2018 out of indignation over the dead at sea and the policy of closed ports. "The Pope's invitation is an honor that humbly surpasses me and instills hope".

The theme of the Synod contains three words: communion, participation, mission. Did he expect it?

"The Synod of Bishops will be an important moment of communion, which brings together practices and thoughts. Honestly no, I did not expect it, but in addition to Pope Francis, the cardinals and monsignors, there will also be nuns and lay theologians. I don't feel like a "special guest" but the last of the last".

What is the political value of this invitation in your opinion?

"First of all, I would say that the Synod must not be considered as an event in itself but as a journey. The fact that lay people are also invited means that it is a time for common reflection. This time imposes enormous challenges".

You are being investigated for aiding and abetting illegal immigration, but Pope Francis has invited you anyway. What does this gesture mean?

"I'm certainly not a "comfortable" guest, I could be considered a "scandal stone". I am on trial because in 2019, with the ship Mar Jonio, I recovered 49 people off the Libyan coast and disembarked them in Lampedusa. I go to listen, not to teach. I am what I am, but migration is a challenge to the concept of human dignity, the relationship between rights and needs, which the Pope shares and supports, and which we must face differently".

How, for example?

“Let's think of the Mediterranean, of the dead at sea. So far we have focused more on liberty and equality, less on fraternity, quoting the motto of the French revolution. The people who try to flee Libya are our brothers, for example, as the Pope also wrote in his encyclical "Fratelli tutti". We have to start afresh from this, that is, to reflect on our common belonging to the human family".

Why do we struggle to feel migrant people as brothers and sisters?

We perform acts even in a democracy that envisage different degrees of humanity, forgetting that we belong to a single human family. Instead, we should guarantee all people regardless of where they are born. This battle is not won only with rationality, it takes additional strength».

Are you Catholic?

“I wouldn't call myself a Catholic but a Christian. Until I was 12, I attended church. I am baptized and have received Communion and confirmation. That relationship with the Church then broke down. But I have always felt like a Christian, in the sense of Jesus, whom I consider the greatest revolutionary of all time. I don't go to confession and I don't go to parishes, I'm not very liturgical. In my journey I have met priests and nuns, from Don Ciotti to Don Gallo, from Don Vitaliano della Sala to the cloistered Poor Clares who supported the movement that criticized globalization before the G8. Francis' Church confronts itself starting from the things of the world, starting with civil rescue at sea as a concrete practice for saving human lives".

You have already met Pope Francis other times, what do you say to each other when you talk about these topics?

"The first time was in 2020, every now and then the crews of Mediterranea are received at the Vatican. During Easter 2020 the Pope wrote to me calling me brother, he asked me to embrace my companions and tell them that he is with us. I told him live that what we do is difficult, because we are criminalized, because they send us to distant ports and do everything to prevent us from saving people at sea. He simply replies “go ahead”. So he brought me closer to Christianity understood as a spiritual dimension of doing things, not of looking at them and complaining. He calls this way of living and changing things the Gospel".

A delegation of Mediterranea Saving Humans with Pope Francis

What projects are you engaged in at the moment?

“In the afternoon I will call a nun who works in the refugee camp of Smyrna, in Turkey: there are people locked up there because the European Union has given millions of euros to keep them in containment camps and prevent them from coming from here. Many religious work in those fields who see Christ in the refugee camps. I feel I have a lot in common with them. No one is safe, as the pandemic and war demonstrate. No one saves themselves."

When will he leave on board Mediterranea?

«The ship is in technical stop in Trapani, waiting to leave again, and I'm here. But we do many other things like Mediterranea, in addition to civil rescue at sea. For example, we are in Ukraine on a mission with our doctors in the Lviv oblast".

What are your wishes for the next Synod?

“We have to overcome ideologies to focus on what needs to be done to make everyone feel better. Sometimes we are prisoners of some battles and we lose substance. When you hug a person and pull him out of the water, that is, from certain death, in that moment there is no status or skin color that holds, you have saved a person, you have saved the whole world. In those moments I am happy. I wish a happy way. For my children and for all of us."

Source