What are core elements of a merciful response? The case study of Australia's refugee policy. Maryanne Loughry rsm

Yarmouk Refugee Camp, Syria 24 th February 2014

Wafiqu: “Self appointed spokesperson for the suffering” BBC

22 June ,000 still under siege (BBC)

End of 2014 World Food Program (WFP) ceases giving food vouchers to Syrian refugees

Filippo Grandi

Forcible Displacement 2015

Asylum seekers in the Mediteranean

UNHCR 2015 "We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before" UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres.

National Inquiry into children in Immigration detention

Core elements of a merciful response? Practical Works of Mercy Considered & Informed Politically Theologically Moved with Compassion and Loving Kindness (Hesed & Rachamin) When Mercy and Justice meet Mindfulness Partnership, collaboration, networking

Core elements of a merciful response? Practical Works of Mercy Considered & Informed Politically Theologically Moved with Compassion and Loving Kindness (Hesed & Rachamin) When Mercy and Justice meet Mindfulness Partnership, collaboration, networking

The Corporal Works of Mercy

Corporal Works of Mercy

Core elements of a merciful response Practical Works of Mercy Considered & Informed Politically Theologically Moved with Compassion and Loving Kindness (Hesed & Rachamin) When Mercy and Justice meet Mindfulness Partnership, collaboration, networking

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. Matthew 10:16

Pope Francis on Lampedusa

Evangelli Gaudium Pope Francis To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own.

Evangelli Gaudium Pope Francis It is essential to draw near to new forms of poverty and vulnerability, in which we are called to recognize the suffering Christ, even if this appears to bring us no tangible and immediate benefits. I think of the homeless, the addicted, refugees, indigenous peoples, the elderly who are increasingly isolated and abandoned, and many others. Migrants present a particular challenge for me, since I am the pastor of a Church without frontiers, a Church which considers herself mother to all.

Cardinal O’Malley at the Mexican border

The shared sacrament

“Theologically” ‘ Where is your brother?’ Genesis 4:9 The Cry of the Poor. Psalm 34 Who is my neighbour? Luke 10: Judgement of the Nations. Matthew 25: 31-37

Pope Francis in the Philippines: "Why did God let this happen to us?

"Only when we too can cry about the things that you said are we able to come close to replying to that question,“ "Certain realties in life we only see through eyes that are cleansed through our tears," Pope Francis’s reply

Core elements of a merciful response? Left Brain Practical Works of Mercy Considered & Informed Theologically Politically Right Brain Moved with Compassion and Loving Kindness When Mercy and Justice meet Mindfulness Partnership, collaboration, networking

Core elements of a merciful response? Practical Works of Mercy Considered & Informed Politically Theologically Moved with Compassion and Loving Kindness (Hesed and Rachamin) When Mercy and Justice meet Mindfulness Partnership, collaboration, networking

Compassion, Mercy and Loving Kindness Hebrew words-most applying to God’s love for us Hesed Rachamin Hesed: refers to a variety of human relationships and inherent in these is the concept of reciprocity Rachamin: tender, responsive, compassionate love/mercy. It comes from the word rechem-’mother’s womb’. Gratuitous unconditional love

Mindfulness

Empathic Attuneness " When we attune with others we allow our own internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another. This resonance is at the heart of the important sense of “feeling felt” that emerges in close relationships” Dan Seigel

Core elements of a merciful response? Practical Works of Mercy Considered & Informed Politically Theologically Moved with Compassion and Loving Kindness (Hesed & Rachamin) When Mercy and Justice meet Mindfulness Partnership, collaboration, networking