Pope Leo tells human traffickers to 'repent' or face God’s judgment
TENERIFE, Spain (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV issued a stark warning to human traffickers, telling them to “repent” or face the judgment of God, during a speech to charity workers for the integration of migrants on the Spanish island of Tenerife on Friday (June 12).
“I wish to address a clear message to those who take advantage of people’s desperation, to those who organize death routes, traffic in human beings, withhold documents, exploit workers, threaten women, deceive families and turn the suffering of others into a business. Stop. Repent,” Leo said.
The pope said that God hears the suffering of trafficking victims and that the money gained by their exploitations “will bring neither peace, nor honor, nor a future.” He said traffickers “will have to appear before divine justice,” urging them to free and make amends to those they harmed.
“Repent while there is still time,” he said, “for God’s mercy can reach even the most hardened sinner, but it enters only through the narrow gate of truth, justice and conversion.”
Leo delivered his speech at Plaza del Cristo de La Laguna in Tenerife, one of the eight islands of the Spanish Canaries off the coast of Africa, where he has met and spoken to immigrants, refugees and charity workers.
The Canary Islands are a key stop on the Atlantic route, in which thousands of migrants from West Africa travel to reach Europe each year. While many arrive to the Spanish isles hungry and exhausted, many more die every year in its surrounding waters.
The pope’s message centered on integrating immigrants into society, saying they often face not only literal shipwrecks from the makeshift rafts taking them to Europe, but also the “silent shipwreck” of feeling abandoned in foreign countries and becoming prey to human traffickers. “Integration means preventing that second shipwreck,” the pope said.
Leo specified that integration doesn’t require migrants to leave behind their identity or be segregated from society. “Integration is a reciprocal journey,” he said, where those who arrive learn to live in a new land and those who welcome “learn to expand their own homes.”
Speaking to all Catholics, the pope asked that integration doesn’t stop at providing for basic needs but requires also providing a community for migrants. “A human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea, to the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of aid,” Leo said.
“Every life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family,” he added.