Pope Francis on Tuesday said the challenges of migration and the promotion of peace cannot be tackled without development and integration.

Speaking to participants of an International Forum on Migration and Peace taking place in Rome, whom he received in the Vatican , the Pope said the political community, civil society and the Church must offer a shared response to the complexities of the phenomenon of migration today .

"Our shared response, he said,  may be articulated by four verbs: to welcome, to protect, to promote and to integrate".

He also drew attention to particularly vulnerable group of migrants, exiles and refugees:  "children and young people who are forced to live far from their homeland and who are separated from their loved ones". 

The two-day High-Level International Forum  is organized by the new Vatican Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development in collaboration with the Scalabrini International Migration Network.

It aims to stimulate a high-level dialogue on the root causes of migration and  to elaborate and propose the best solutions for an ethical approach on the international management of migration as well as the integration of migrants in hosting communities, and to concretely influence migration policies and practices.

Full text of the Pope's address to the Forum