On: Pope urges Europe to do more for migrants as he visits gateway island

July 6, 2026

A pope stood among graves on an island I have never seen, but the sea he spoke beside is one I know. The Mediterranean. In my time they called it the Roman Sea and the Syrians called it the White Sea, and I crossed it more times than I can count - from Tangier to Alexandria, from Tripoli to Tunis, always on vessels whose captains knew the wind by scent and whose sailors could read the color of the water for shoals.

He paid tribute to those who died crossing. This I understand. Between Sicily and the African coast the water is deep and indifferent and the boats are small. In my day the merchants of Genoa and Catalonia ran galleys along these routes and the pilgrims crowded aboard and sometimes a storm came and none arrived. The sea does not ask your name or your faith. It takes whom it takes.

What catches me is the word migrant. In every city I entered - Cairo, Damascus, Mecca, Constantinople - I was a stranger. The term was ibn al-sabil, son of the road. The obligation to feed the traveler, to shelter him, to ask nothing of him for three days - this was not charity. It was law. The judge in Fez enforced it. The khan in Sarai enforced it. The sultan in Delhi enforced it, though his methods were stranger.

The pope asks Europe to do more. I have stayed in the guesthouses of Christian kings and Muslim sultans and the question was never what the stranger deserved. The question was what the host owed. The answer revealed the society.

A cemetery on a small island. Graves facing the water that killed them. The pontiff standing there. I have stood in such places. The dead do not care about the sermon.