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World News

Pope's vision for Europe "concerned for everybody in it"

by Hannah Tooley

Caritas Europe has been meeting in France to discuss how European citizens can better work together.

Sister Lynda Dearlove, from Catholic humanitarian charity Caritas, told Premier's News Hour what the pope would like to see.

"A Europe that's actually concerned for everybody in it," she said.

"So a concern for the poorest and for the most excluded and vulnerable, as well as the profit and everything else that people are talking about."

She was speaking at the Caritas Europa Regional Conference 2016.

AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia

Sister Lynda went on to say that sometimes people can be treated as statistics, not faces.

"The issue about numbers - a lot of what we're hearing at the moment, a lot of rhetoric we're hearing around the referendum is actually variations of interpretation statistics, which often has very little to do with the people behind them."

She said the Caritas meeting has been designed to include the voices of all Europeans.

"It challenges policies that exclude, and looks at ways to include voices of the excluded, so we've been looking at the issues around migration and exclusion and other aspects of poverty."

More than 300 people from 42 European countries came together to discuss the state of family and child poverty, extreme vulnerability, participation in the economy, and migration and asylum in Europe.

Sister Lynda Dearlove said: "It was wonderful to experience the real spirit of Caritas, the shared passion for justice and for responding to the needs of the most poor and excluded people in our society.

"Representatives from CSAN and CAFOD experienced real solidarity from Caritas organisations from across Europe. We were delighted to renew friendships with our sister agency Secours Catholique on the occasion of their 70th birthday.

"We remain committed to working with them to address the problem of migrants trapped in the camps in Northern France."

Listen to Premier's Hannah Tooley speak to Sister Lynda Dearlove here:

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