By: Joseph T. Kelley, Ph.D., D.Min.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reports disturbing statistics about the displacement of millions of people around the world. Over 117 million people were forced to flee their homes in 2023—and the violence of 2024 will certainly increase that number. 43.4 million of these displaced persons met the official UN category of “refugee”—and 40% of these were under 18 years of age. 5.8 million are in urgent need of international protection, including many people categorized as “stateless.”
The data shows a dramatic, worldwide increase in the forced displacement of persons since 2012. We know the reasons: ethnic and religious persecution, wars and gang violence, human rights violations, economic crises, despotic leaders and serious disruptions in public order and social structures. The problem presses ever closer to us at home: the issues at the US southern border, the hundreds of immigrants camped out in Terminal E at Boston’s Logan Airport over the summer, families from Syria, Ukraine, Palestine arriving at our cities and churches.
Pope Francis has been a global voice calling all peoples and nations to respond to the human needs and sufferings of refugees. Perhaps more than any other world leader, he has raised awareness of this crisis with his words and actions. Many centuries ago, another Christian bishop also called the Church and society to respond to the plight of displaced persons and refugees. This was Saint Augustine, the Bishop of the port city of Hippo Regius in what is today Annaba, Algeria.
In the early fifth century the citizens of Rome and the Italian peninsula were displaced by violence. Visigoth tribes were pushing down Italy, eventually laying siege to Rome, and finally sacking it in 410. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people (the population of Rome at that time was over 800,000) fled across the Mediterranean Sea for safety. But they were not heading North as refugees do today. They sailed South, from Italy to the safer shores of North Africa. The rich Romans had sturdy vessels to flee to their estates in North Africa. The poor had to hope for a place on the ships of their masters, or make do with much more precarious, wooden crafts that most likely resembled the overcrowded boats that embark from North Africa today.
We can discern three dimensions of Augustine’s pastoral response to the influx of refugees from Italy into his diocese. The first is that he gave voice to the general fear, uncertainty and distress that the sack of Rome caused around the empire. In several sermons preached between 410 and 411 Augustine’s rhetoric testified to the alarm of the age. Speaking about the fall of Rome, he told his congregation that the world is “being laid waste…, going to ruin…. The world has grown old; it’s full of complaints…, full of troubles and pressure (Sermon 81).” Those words, which acknowledged his congregation’s anxiety, are a distant echo of the fears of today.
The second important element of Augustine’s pastoral response is also found in his sermons. He became the public voice of the refugees. His sermons were public testimony for those who had fled the violence in Italy, and who now were among the members of the congregations he addressed. Romans, some of whom he knew personally from his five years teaching in Italy, were now the refugees—displaced persons, fleeing war and violence, facing the uncertainty all refugees face. In Sermon 81 Augustine, with painful irony, reminded his congregation that even Aeneas, one of Rome’s legendary founders, was himself a fugiens a “fugitive—a refugee fleeing the fall of Troy,” sailing homeless around the Mediterranean, presaging the journey of so many generations of refugees across that same sea, even to Augustine’s day (and, we might add, even to our day).
Augustine not only spoke on behalf of refugees. The third dimension of his pastoral response was to call for a coordinated response to their plight. He instructed priests to investigate all cases of cruelty, and to console the victims, helping them not to complain against God despite their sufferings (Letter 111). He urged his congregation in Hippo to “show compassion to those who are suffering, to take care of the weak; and at this time of many refugees from abroad to be generous in your hospitality, generous in your good works (Sermon 81).” He reminded his people that charity and generosity, especially on behalf of the less fortunate, are essential to Christian life (Sermon 389).
Letter 130 written in 411 sounds the depths of Augustine’s pastoral response to the suffering of refugees. One of those who had fled from Rome to Africa was the wealthy Roman widow Proba. A devout Catholic Christian, she had asked Augustine about St. Paul’s instruction in his First Letter to the Thessalonians to “pray always (1 Thessalonians 5:17).” He responded with Letter 130, well-known for its reflections on the nature of prayer. In this letter the themes of displacement and exile weave their way in and out of Augustine’s thoughts on prayer. Even as he discourses on various aspects of prayer, he remains sensitive to Proba’s personal situation as a refugee. After all, one prays within the existential context of one’s life situation, and Proba, despite her vast wealth and noble status, was nonetheless an exile.
Augustine reminds Proba that in this world no one is really secure. She knows from her own personal experience that wealth, family and friends can be snatched away in an instant. The plight of the refugee keeps us all mindful of the fragility of life and the contingency of our status and situation, whatever it is (cf. 1 Timothy 6:6-10).
We should not let our happiness depend on material possessions and social standing. Such things are useful only if they help us to stay healthy and live a morally good life. Augustine reminds Proba that people are more important than possessions. He writes to her: “If poverty pinches, if grief saddens, if bodily pain disturbs, if exile discourages, if any other disaster torments, provided that there are present good human beings who… can speak and converse in a helpful way, those rough spots are smoothed, the heavy burdens are lightened, and adversity is overcome (Letter 130.2.4).”
He emphasizes the importance of companions in exile: “Without a friend,” Augustine writes, “nothing in the world seems friendly (Letter 130.2.4).” You may have lost many friends during the sack of Rome, Augustine seems to be saying, but you still have friends here and now, in your place of exile. Stay open to them. He invites Proba to admit new people into her circle of friends in Africa—perhaps those she may have previously considered socially beneath her, or even enemies. Friendship, he writes, “should not be bounded by narrow limits (Letter 130.6.13).” He continues, “There is no one in the human race to whom we do not owe love (Letter 130.6.13).” The latter is a remarkable statement, calling Proba and all of us to honor the common humanity we share with all people, no matter how different or distressed.
Proba had lost her husband in 395, many years before the fall of Rome. Augustine draws a pastoral analogy between her status as a widow—albeit a wealthy one—and her new status as a refugee. Every widow is an exile, because by the death of her husband she has been exiled from her former way of life, and for most Roman women less fortunate than Proba, the exile of widowhood brought uncertainty, poverty and vulnerability. The fate of widows is “abandonment and desolation (Letter 130.14.30).” But in fact, Augustine asks, is that not the fate of everyone in this world, exiled from God, struggling along the journey to God? The status of the refugee and the exile of the widow throw light on the existential truth of every human life. The loss of homeland, family, possessions, and social status can happen to anyone. Every person is in exile during our sojourn on this earth. During our earthly wandering we should concentrate on what really matters: God, friendship and generous love. These are the things, Augustine tells Proba, about which she should pray.
Immigration is a complicated issue, presenting many challenges to countries who receive people in great numbers. It is also a trial for the immigrants, most of whom never wanted to leave home. It was only because home became intolerable, dangerous and deadly that they left. According to Augustine and Francis, it is the responsibility of all Christians to acknowledge the general anxiety that the global displacement of persons causes in all of us; to be a voice for the displaced, who have lost their voice along with their homes; to respond to their immediate needs as well as to the injustice that displaced them; and, to take a lesson from the lives of refugees that we are all travelers on this earth, hoping one day to find in God the true home of all persons.