"These are certainly difficult days that we are experiencing on the immigration front", the director of Caritas Italiana, Father Marco Pagniello, told the Italian Bishops Conference's SIR news agency in a comment published on Friday, September 15.

"Images coming from Lampedusa show the tensions, fatigue and fears of these past few hours but also bring to mind images we have already seen and tell us that it's time to change, to make courageous and shared choices so that this moment doesn't become yet another that we have already experienced but can be a starting point - a turning point which all of us, together, can and must make to write a new page in the history of Italian migration policies," he declared.

Lampedusa has been struggling to cope with a peak in migrant arrivals from North Africa after numbers reached over 7,000 people this week, more than the entire local population of just over 6,000.

'The phenomenon is systematic, not an emergency'

"We have stressed on multiple occasions that it is not possible to talk about an emergency anymore because the phenomenon is at this point systematic," the Caritas chief went on to say. "We have cyclically registered peaks for years and the tragedies that have recently devastated some African countries, as well as the many dramas, famines and civil wars recorded in others are elements that influence landings and these peaks in arrivals."

Pagniello observed that people are fleeing their home country "because their rights and their lives are in constant danger" and the "journey through the desert and at sea appears less dangerous than staying in certain contexts."

"Such considerations, which we all know, tells us that we can really make an impact and produce change if we invert the storyline and choose to start a turning point in the construction of policies of hosting and inclusion in Italy and in Europe."

'We must work together, not be divided'

Father Pagniello said such a path needs unity so that "everybody can contribute and overcome a logic of contrast."

The Catholic Church has "never pulled back", he noted, hailing its "constant and precious work, which enables us to accompany people who arrive as well as communities along a path of reciprocal knowledge and hospitality that demonstrates trust in the other."

"We understand fatigue and we are aware of the efforts [made by] all authorities, local agencies as well as other organizations," said the priest, "but it is clear and necessary to work together, not be divided, to enhance the work and good practices already in place."

These practices, said Pagniello "show us that it is possible to build dignified and safe pathways for entry, effective processes of inclusion and actions of empowerment whose results make us grow and improve together, support each other." They also help the appropriate instutitions discuss the issues on the ground and provide a "perspective of solidarity, as well as of real and effective subsidiarity which won't end when summer is over, which are not a temporary response but a new point of departure, a step towards change", concluded the director of Caritas.