"I was a stranger and ye took me in" (ending of Matthew 25:35) This verse emphasizes the essence of the New Testament which is to express love and care for all people. The largely Catholic Italian population believes that the government must take measures to welcome immigrants and provide them opportunities.
The argument
On this view the debate was an argument about how to improve immigration policies, and one of the positions advanced within it was framed in explicitly Christian terms. While being clear about the fact that immigration must be handled wisely, Pope Francis and his supporters reject the distinction between the "clandestine" and the "legal immigrant". Their objection, as proponents present it, is that such a distinction sorts people by their paperwork rather than by their need, and that someone fleeing misery and hunger is not a different kind of person according to the route by which they arrived. Rejecting the distinction is not, on this account, a call to abandon rules; it is a claim about which facts a policy ought to be built around. What follows is a programme rather than a sentiment. The Pope claims that all the countries in the world should cooperate to deal with this issue, on the reasoning that a movement of people across many borders cannot be managed by each state acting only at its own frontier. He asks that the fear of diversity be fought and that humankind be looked at as a single family, which supporters treat as the premise making cooperation thinkable rather than as mere exhortation. He also asks that economic operators start thinking about those who flee from misery and hunger and invest in their countries, addressing the conditions that produce departure in the first place, so that immigration could become a chance of mutual growth for everyone rather than a burden to be allocated between states. Underwriting all of this, proponents hold, is a value that many Biblical verses praise: hospitality. Its practical application, on this reading, should include caring for every person who comes to the door, and a policy built on that value would be a better policy, which is what supporters take the debate to have been about.
Context
During his pontificate, Pope Francis repeatedly criticised the anti-immigration policies operated by many foreign governments. This created a fracture among the Italian Catholics, since many of them are also strong supporters of Matteo Salvini.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Critics of this Argument often point out that such talks often lack of a practical application.
Rejecting the premises
It's a utopian idea