On December 18, which the UN commemorates as International Migrants Day, Pope Francis tweeted, “Let us look into the eyes of the discarded people we meet, let us be provoked by the faces of children, the children of desperate migrants. Let us allow ourselves to be moved by their suffering in order to react to our indifference. #MigrantsDay”

That same day, with the headline “Vite strappate al mare” [Lives snatched from the sea], the Vatican newspaper devoted its most prominent front-page coverage to the rescue of 138 migrants in the English Channel.