In what the Vatican is billing as a “summit on the migrant emergency,” Pope Francis met with a group of four hundred schoolchildren from the south of Italy on Saturday, assuring them that they have nothing to fear from migrants but should be reaching out to welcome them.

The students all came from the southern Italian region of Calabria, which has been among the areas hardest hit by the waves of migrants that daily reach Italy’s shores, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa. MORE