ROME — The Vatican has announced its intention to play host to Little Amal, an enormous refugee puppet that travels about raising consciousness to the plight of migrants and refugees.
On Friday, September 10, Little Amal will stop in Saint Peter’s Square near the Angels Unawares monument, which was also installed to bring greater attention to migrants, the Vatican informed in a communiqué Monday.
The welcoming committee for the puppet will include Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny, undersecretary of the Vatican’s office for Migrants and Refugees, and Bishop Benoni Ambarus, director of Caritas and the migrant office for the diocese of Rome.
According to its official website, “Little Amal is the giant puppet at the heart of The Walk, travelling 8,000km in support of refugees.”
“In 2021, the 3.5 metre-tall living artwork of a young Syrian refugee child will walk across Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and the UK to focus attention on the urgent needs of young refugees,” it states.
Little Amal, a giant puppet depicting a young Syrian refugee girl, performs outside the Municipal Theatre of Piraeus on September 4, 2021 in Piraeus, Greece. Little Amal is a 3.5 metre puppet walking 8,000 kilometres across Europe to highlight the plight of child refugees. There are some 26 million refugees worldwide, and more than half of them are children. (Ayman Oghanna/Getty Images)
To celebrate the occasion of Amal’s arrival, the diocese of Rome is organizing a party for dozens of children from different Roman parishes, who will also be addressed by Cardinal Czerny and Bishop Ambarus.
“Amal is big and beautiful, and meeting her is a pleasure,” Cardinal Czerny states in the communiqué, “but she immediately reminds us that meeting vulnerable migrants, precarious workers, and asylum seekers among us requires more than just a glance.”
“Each of them, with their own baggage of sufferings and dreams, needs and talents, is waiting for us to open our ears, our minds and our hearts as well as our eyes and for us to stretch out our hands,” Czerny declares.
According to the cardinal, the Vatican’s Migrants and Refugees Section is pleased to support Amal’s journey and to share this moment of encounter promoted by the diocese of Rome.
The Municipal Band of Piraeus serenade Little Amal, a giant puppet depicting a young Syrian refugee girl, as she leaves the port of Piraeus bound for Italy on September 5, 2021 in Piraeus, Greece. (Ayman Oghanna/Getty Images)
“Amal is a child and a foreigner, completely helpless and among the most vulnerable,” he states. “Uprooted from her family, from her community, from her aspirations, she must count on strangers to welcome and protect her to become the person that God has made of her and to take her rightful place in the community that welcomes her.”
“Amal invites us to open our eyes and listen to their voices, come and meet her when she is in Rome!” he concludes.
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