SOFIA: Pope Francis urged Bulgarians on Sunday to open their hearts and homes to migrants, arguing that a country like Bulgaria, which is losing so much of its population to emigration, should well understand the forces that drive people to seek better lives elsewhere.

As he arrived in the Balkan nation for a two-day visit, Pope Francis “respectfully suggested” that Bulgarians recognise that migrants are fleeing war, conflict or dire poverty “to find new opportunities in life or simply a safe refuge.” “To all Bulgarians, who are familiar with the drama of emigration, I respectfully suggest that you not close your eyes, your hearts or your hands in accordance with your best tradition to those who knock at your door,” he told government officials at the presidential palace in Sofia, the capital.

Bulgaria’s centre-right, pro-Brussels coalition government includes three nationalist, anti-migrant parties. The government has called for the European Union to close its borders to migrants and has sealed off its own frontier with Turkey with a barbed-wire fence. But the country is also losing its population at a faster clip than any other nation, according to the UN Bulgaria’s current 7 million people are expected to dwindle to 5.4 million by 2050 and to 3.9 million by the end of the century.

The Argentine pope has made the plight of migrants and refugees a hallmark of his papacy, urging governments to build bridges, not walls, and to do what they can to welcome and integrate refugees. His visit falls just three weeks before the European Parliament elections across the EU’s 28 nations in which nationalist, anti-migrant parties are expected to make a solid showing. On Monday, Pope Francis will visit a refugee centre in a former school on the outskirts of Sofia.

Human rights groups have criticized Bulgaria and the EU’s executive commission has formally cited the government over its treatment of asylum-seekers, especially unaccompanied minors. The Vrazhdebna centre the pope plans to visit, the flagship immigrant welcome centre in Bulgaria, was renovated with EU funds. Radostina Belcheva of the Council of Refugee Women in Bulgaria said Francis’ visit will show solidarity with those in need.

“But really, their whole acceptance is a matter for each of us and for our society,” Belcheva said.

Bulgaria’s tough stance on refugees has been a deterrent: while some 20,000 people applied for asylum in Bulgaria in 2015, that number dwindled to 2,500 last year, according to the state refugee agency. From an economic standpoint, however, the EU’s poorest nation may need more immigration to stabilise its future. Bulgaria has the EU’s highest mortality rate and one of the bloc’s lowest birth rates. That, combined with tens of thousands of workers leaving the country annually to find better-paying jobs, poses serious problems for funding the country’s pension system.

Pope Francis urged the government to continue working to reverse this “new demographic winter,” sa­y­­­ing the shrinking population phenomenon had “descended like a curtain of ice on a large part of Europe, the consequence of a diminished confidence in the future.”

He urged Bulgaria to “str­ive to create conditions that lead young people to invest the­ir youthful energies and plan their future, as individuals and fam­ilies, knowing that in their homeland they can have the pos­s­ibility of leading a dignified life.” Pope Francis later met with the leader of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Neofit, during a visit to the headquarters of the Holy Synod, the church’s governing body.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2019