The bishop of the Canary Islands, José Mazuelos, has launched a message that should resonate in the church pews and, above all, in the armchairs where some politicians insist on using migration as an electoral weapon. He has asked that the pain of those who risk their lives in the Atlantic not be manipulated and that the sowing of fear and hatred with cheap headlines cease.
And yet, here we have VOX with its canned xenophobic discourse and the most rancid PP looking the other way, as if the Bible they claim to defend only served as a decorative object on the nightstand.
Because the Bible —yes, that book they quote so much when it suits them— speaks clearly:
- “You shall not oppress a sojourner, for you know the heart of a sojourner, since you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9).
- “The foreigner who resides with you shall be to you as the native born among you, and you shall love him as yourself” (Leviticus 19:34).
- “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).
These are not phrases hidden in footnotes. They are direct, frontal commands that seem written for today's news.
The paradox is that many of those who wave flags of “Christian tradition” forget that the essence of that tradition is not in building walls, but in extending hands. They wrap themselves in crucifixes while rejecting the foreigner, as if they did not know —or preferred not to know— what religion they are practicing. That “love your neighbor as yourself” sticks in their throats when the neighbor arrives in a small boat.
They are the same ones who pray on Sunday and press the button on Monday for a law that hardens borders. Those who say “God willing” in speeches, but wield the gavel when it's time to vote. Window-dressing Catholicism, on-again, off-again faith.
Meanwhile, Bishop Mazuelos remembers the basics: that the Atlantic cannot be a cemetery and that the deaths on the Canary Route are not numbers, they are truncated lives. And that, like it or not, is a profoundly Christian message, even if it hurts some because it dismantles the discourse of fear.
Perhaps what bothers them most is not the bishop's message, but the mirror in which they see themselves reflected: a convenient Christianity that stays in the twelve o'clock mass and forgets what Christ preached in the streets.
