The Vatican newspaper devoted the most prominent article in its February 26 edition to the third anniversary of the Calabria migrant boat disaster, in which 94 migrants drowned as they attempted to reach Italy.
“I think of the parish priest of Cutro who, in those days, could only go home for a shower, and then return to those beaches to collect bodies,” said Archbishop Alberto Torriani of Crotone-Santa Severina, who lamented “the hatred that increasingly insinuates itself into relationships, between people.”
Archbishop Claudio Maniago of Catanzaro-Squillace, vice president of the Calabrian Episcopal Conference, called on the region’s people “not to turn a blind eye”: “as bishops of Calabria, comes the duty to raise a voice in this silence, so that people realize that there are brothers and sisters seeking a dignified life.”