Pope ‘moved to tears’ by asylum seekers’ plight

Pope Francis said on Sunday the plight of asylum seekers hoping for a new life in Europe was enough to make him cry, condemning those who treat them “like merchandise”.

Speaking during his first pastoral visit to northern Italy, the pontiff slammed hostility towards migrants arriving by boat from Libya, with European countries bickering over who should be forced to provide shelter to the needy.

“It brings tears to one’s eyes to see the spectacle of these days, in which human beings have been treated like merchandise,” he told the crowds.

He was speaking as Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi met his French counterpart Francois Hollande in Milan to discuss the immigration crisis which has seen hundreds of migrants blocked on the border between the two countries.

The head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics was in the industrial city in the northwest of the country for a two-day visit which saw him spend time with the poor, sick and marginalised, including prisoners and migrants.

Francis, whose father grew up in the city, was in Turin to pray before the mysterious shroud, believed by Christians to be the burial cloth of Jesus but held by sceptics to be a medieval fake.

Sitting before it in silence in the city’s cathedral, Francis remained with his head bowed in prayer before rising to contemplate up close the linen cloth which bears the faint image of a man who appears to have died by crucifixion.