Small Boats, the Gospel, and the Common Good

I remember standing in the arrivals hall of a busy airport, watching the sliding doors open and close as travellers spilled into the arms of waiting relatives. We had been there for hours, but in truth we had been preparing for months, readying a house belonging to the church, filling cupboards, setting up beds, making it a place of warmth after years of uncertainty. Then they appeared: a mother with three children, the youngest clinging to her hand, and one small bag between them. They were Syrians fleeing the barbaric regime of Bashar al-Assad. The father arrived an hour later, his own escape finally complete. Their faces were taut with exhaustion, but when our eyes met, the mother managed a faint, brave smile.

Moments like that stay with you. For several years I worked in refugee resettlement and support at both national and diocesan level. I have sat in kitchens with families still trembling from their escape, sharing stories of crossing mountains in the dark or hiding while shells fell overhead. I have seen bullet wounds and torture scars – the visible kind. The hidden ones rarely heal. I have been served the first meal a newly arrived family cooked in their own home.

I have also sat at tables with Home Office ministers and civil servants, urging that humanity, not bureaucracy, be the starting point for policy. Whether in a family kitchen or a Whitehall meeting room, the human reality is what matters: real people with real names and real hopes, longing for a life free from fear.

Some mornings the news shows a different arrival scene: a cold, grey sea, a small dinghy riding low in the water, figures huddled in life jackets edging slowly towards the Kent coast. The headlines are now familiar and urgent. Since 2024, over 50,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats, a benchmark reached faster than in any previous comparable period. Just yesterday, 474 migrants arrived in eight boats — the highest single-day total so far this August. Tragically, fatal crossings have become more frequent, with at least 20 lives lost this year.

These crossings are happening at unprecedented speed. In the first half of 2025, nearly 20,000 people made the journey — almost half as many again as during the same period in 2024. In 2024, around 37,000 people crossed by small boat, which was already a significant rise on the year before.

During the same period, anti-immigration protests have taken place in towns and cities across the country, as local communities voiced concerns about housing pressure, safety, and the lack of consultation. These protests reflect a genuine distress often represented by visceral anger — a sense that decisions affecting neighbourhood life are being taken far from home and without listening to the people most affected.

For others, those boats are a final refuge, carrying people fleeing war, persecution, and dire poverty. Seeing only a problem in those figures ignores the demand of the Gospel. Christ said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” and He Himself fled as a refugee to Egypt. Every person in those boats bears the image of God.

Catholic Social Teaching offers direction here, affirming human dignity, the common good, solidarity with the poor, and subsidiarity: that decisions should be made as close to affected communities as possible, while nations collaborate to address root causes. Holding those teachings does not mean ignoring hard truths.

Not all who arrive qualify as refugees under international law. Some are escaping bullets; others, economic collapse. Smugglers profit from their desperation, and the sea itself continues to swallow up lives.

Yet the Christian task remains: to hold mercy and truth, justice and peace, in tension. We cannot open the borders without order, nor can we harden our hearts to those in peril.

What would a moral, workable response look like? It would include life-saving rescue at sea, safe and legal routes for those with valid claims, swift and fair processing, and international efforts to alleviate war, poverty, and inequity.

Local churches must embody the Gospel from the ground up. We are not tasked with processing asylum claims, but with living the Gospel where we are. That might mean helping someone with English lessons, offering clothing, sharing a meal, or learning someone’s name. These small gestures carry the weight of God’s Kingdom.

At the altar, we kneel beside people of every background, receiving the same Body and Blood. This is the Church in its truest form, a sign of the world to come — a world where there are no strangers, only fellow citizens.

Saint Benedict said, “Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ.” That is not naïve. It is the costly work of discipleship — compassion without sentimentality and realism without cruelty.

If we keep our eyes on Christ, our policies, our communities, and our churches might yet reflect something of that Kingdom where all are welcomed, all are fed, and none are strangers.