Sunday’s Gospel of the Good Samaritan has as its core message ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’. But the story is a reply to a specific question and obviously doesn’t exhaust all facets of the issue. For example, in this particular case, the ‘neighbourly’ thing to do next would be to guarantee the safety of the road so that future travellers would not fall victims to robbers. In today’s terms, it’s clear that we must look after refugees and provide them with shelter, food, medical facilities and an environment acceptable to them, but also that we should be working towards making their countries of origin self-sufficient and safe, to the extent that the refugees can return and prosper there ...
