Saturday 18 April 2009

Refugees and Pilgram Marpeck

The recurrence of fear -mongering and mean spirited politicking by members of the Coalition over the tragedy surrendering the refugees at Ashmore Reef this week, brought me back to the appeal by Pilgram Marpeck the Anbaptist civil servant and pastoral theologian in his final response to the Strasbourg council, at the point where they were about to chuck him out of Strasbourg on an issue of conscience:

I hope that you completely avoid any persecution of the miserable people who have no place in the world and who flee to you, especially if they are innocent of crimes, to find a haven from their misery without any coercion of their conscience.

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