Refugee Summits Highlight Urgent Need to Update Global Refugee Response

by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York

The United Nations and President Obama are convening special summits on refugees at the end of this month, just as the Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis is nearing its end. The Year of Mercy reminds Catholics of a basic of our faith, the Works of Mercy, one of which is to shelter the stranger, or, as Jesus put it, For I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.

This basic moral principle is shared by our Jewish neighbors and other faiths as well. The world recognized it most dramatically in the wake of World War II, when tens of millions were forced to flee their homes, to become strangers in other lands. Dealing with these refugees required a comprehensive and compassionate approach, and caring for refugees was at the top of the agenda for the newly formed United Nations.

We now face a similar crisis, and once again we must be prepared to welcome the stranger. Sixty-five million people around the world have been forced from their homes and their lands by violence. As world leaders gather to address this crisis, it is time to renew those structures put in place almost 70 years ago that established the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and developed a set of internationally accepted laws governing the rights of refugees and the responsibilities of the countries that host them.

The international humanitarian organization founded by my Church Catholic Relief Services (CRS) got its start in 1943 dealing with refugees during World War II. CRS served Poles who had traveled across Russia from internment in Siberia to Iran. Giving Catholics in America a way to help refugees when that war ended helped establish CRS, now one of the largest relief and development agencies in the world. Welcoming the stranger remains one of its core missions.

The post-World War II refugee crisis had challenges that were particular to those circumstances and that time. While the moral imperatives remain the same, the structures put in place during the 1940s and 1950s need updating, as we deal with forces that have caused more people to flee their homes than at any time since that last World War.

Then the assumption was that refugees would soon return home or find a suitable permanent resettlement. Refugee status was then a matter of months, at most a few years. Today, in a majority of protracted refugee situations, populations have been displaced from their homes for over 20 years. It is necessary to incorporate this reality in re-framing refugee regulations, to be fair both to the refugees and to the countries that host them. The international community has to start thinking of long-term strategies that allow parents to get back to work, children to continue their education, and families to be sustained and united.

In many cases, this will mean allowing refugees to become neighbors, not guests, to share their gifts and their work, to attend school, to fully participate in their host communities. This can lead to a new kind of relationship as hospitality leads to mutuality. This transition can help to bring more peaceful and prosperous communities.

Refugees and those living and working closest to them must be empowered to make their own decisions and address their own challenges. The Catholic Social Teaching principle of subsidiarity tells us that solutions are more effective when they are devised as close to the people as possible. This must be a guiding principle as we re-imagine the status of refugees in our world today.

But even as we heed this local leadership we recognize that the international community must provide significant support. I commend the United States for taking a leadership role with its generosity toward refugee relief efforts around the world. Now we must lead an effort to reform the systems put in place decades ago so we can help those stuck in protracted situations live as they deserve.

At the same time, I must call on my country to welcome even more refugees, whether they are escaping violence in Syria or Central America, oppression in Asia or Africa. The world looks to us for moral leadership and we must provide it in this crucial area. The Obama administration has met its commitment of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees within this fiscal year, and announced this week it will seek to accept 110,000 refugees from around the world in Fiscal Year 2017. This is commendable. Considering the amount of resources we have at our disposal - compared to some of our global neighbors whove taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees - Congress should ensure adequate funding in FY17 appropriations to resettle the 110,000 refugees the administration aims to.

At some point, most of us, or those who preceded us, were strangers in this country and were welcomed. That tradition must be upheld and expanded at this time of crisis in our world. Thats a torch of welcome Lady Liberty holds, not a stop sign.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan was named Archbishop of New York in 2009, you can follow him on Twitter at @CardinalDolan