United Kingdom: Bishops’ message, “The Pope provides a radical view of human fraternity and calls us to fight racism”

(London) Proposing to the citizens of the United Kingdom to take up the invitation contained in Pope Francis’s encyclical “Fratelli tutti” (All Brothers) to fight racism in all its forms. It has been made by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales at the start of “Hate Crime Awareness Week”, a week all focussed on raising awareness of hate crime, violence committed against a group defined by its ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation. “The Pope provides us with a radical view of human fraternity and calls us to fight racism”, Paul McAleenan, the bishop in charge of the Migrant and Political Refugees section, states. “In the last few years, even our British society turned out not to be immune to such kind of behaviour. We have witnessed a worrying recrudescence of hate crime, which can take many different forms, such as Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism, hate against migrants and refugees, hostility towards nomadic and travelling communities”. “During this week, we should renew our commitment to proactively fight racism in all its forms”, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales writes on.
Valentina Bombelli