BALTIMORE — Every day, Dino Mujanović watches a tired, haggard stream of men, women and children, mostly refugees from Syria, walk past him — and he remembers another youth on the run from the Balkan wars: himself.

“It’s been extremely hard to face all those situations again from when I was between 17 and 21 years old,” said Mujanović. Back then, he was forced to take refuge in Croatia. Now in his 40s, Mujanović is on the front lines of Europe’s refugee wave as Catholic Relief Services’ program manager of humanitarian operations in Serbia. He meets highly educated people — doctors, engineers, business owners, teachers and university students — who now having nothing but the clothes on their backs and “just a simple bag with a couple kilos of stuff.”

One evening, he saw a father sheltering his son with a plastic garbage bag from the heavy rain — a gesture of a father’s love that raised a tragic question: Where was the boy’s mother? The answer had any number of painful possibilities.

“I was too afraid to ask,” he said.

More than 11 million Syrians — half the nation’s total population — have fled their homes to find refuge from the horrors of the 4-year-old conflict. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reports approximately 60 million people — the highest in recorded history — have been forced to flee their homes for refuge elsewhere. The number of displaced is more than 20 million higher than 10 years ago, and the U.N. reports the grinding war in Syria is the biggest contributor to the increase. One out of six displaced persons in the world are now Syrian. 

The U.S. Catholic Church has been responding to the crisis on two fronts: both with humanitarian assistance through CRS, the U.S. bishops’ international relief agency, and resettling refugees in the U.S.

CRS is working with Caritas Serbia and local churches, in coordination with other organizations, to provide food, shelter, various supplies, legal assistance, interpretation services and doctors to the tens of thousands of refugees walking north through the country.

“This is a huge humanitarian crisis,” Mujanović said. “It’s really obvious that something horrible is happening. Nobody would otherwise take such a long trip.”

 

Pope Calls for Action

A massive outpouring of new volunteers from U.S. Catholics, parishes and dioceses to assist in the refugee crisis has emerged, U.S. Catholic Charities affiliates told the Register, in the wake of Pope Francis’ Sept. 6 appeal for Europe’s parishes and religious houses to each welcome and take in a refugee family.

“We went from zero to 10 or 15 inquiries a day,” said Susan Rauscher, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The diocese is a member of the USCCB’s Office of Migration Services, which resettles 30% of the refugees that come through the federal resettlement program. The USCCB’s resettlement program is based on helping refugees find jobs, safe housing and receive needed medical attention — including for post-traumatic stress from their experiences.

Although the diocese’s charitable arm has not yet resettled Syrian refugees, Rauscher said it has informed the USCCB that it stands ready to increase staff and resources to accept as many as they are assigned.

Frances McBrayer, head of refugee-resettlement services for Catholic Charities Atlanta, said they have received calls from individuals, families, priests and pastors about volunteering to help refugee families.

“Everybody that has called has said they are really moved by what they’ve seen and want to help,” she added.

Parishes, convents and dioceses have also been calling the USCCB’s Office of Migration and Refugee Services to join the federal refugee-resettlement program in the wake of the Pope’s appeal, according to Bill Canny, the office’s executive director.

“Pope Francis has been the primary moral leader in this crisis,” Canny said, noting the Holy Father’s consistent appeal since his 2013 visit to the isle of Lampedusa, off the coast of Sicily, where he met with shipwrecked refugee survivors that crossed from Libya and condemned the “globalization of indifference.”

 

A Secure Program

He added that the U.S. refugee-resettlement program has has security mechanisms in place since Sept. 11, 2001, that include a number of steps, including approximately three security checks, to vet refugees and make certain they pose no threat.

“It’s a very high-quality program and can take months and even a year to actually get through those checks — it’s very thorough,” he said.

The Diocese of Metuchen, N.J., has also volunteered to join the effort to help the Church address the refugee crisis. Msgr. Joseph Kerrigan, director of the diocese’s Catholic Charities solidarity team, said they had already decided after the U.S. bishops’ June meeting — before the headlines — to respond to the appeal of Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, head of the USCCB migration committee, to partner with them in the federal refugee-resettlement program. At the time, he said, only 80 dioceses were participating.

The urgency of the current crisis, he said, has galvanized a volunteer corps and their ongoing collection efforts to start the program.

“We’re in this process of applying, and once we get deeper into it, we can activate people,” he said.

 

Refugee Admissions Raised

The United States currently only accepts 70,000 refugees worldwide per year. But on Sept. 20, Secretary of State John Kerry pledged that this number would be raised to 85,000 next year and to 100,000 in 2017.

And the White House has announced that 10,000 of next year’s refugees will be Syrians — so far, the U.S. has only resettled a little more than 1,500 Syrians escaping the conflict.

“The Obama administration has taken a positive first step forward to address this crisis, but there is still a lot more we can do,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told the Register in an email. The Catholic lawmaker said he was urging the White House to establish a humanitarian safe zone in Syria, ease the delivery of critical humanitarian aid and redouble diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis.

“This is the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. Millions of refugees have been displaced from their families and homes — the vast majority women and children,” he said.

Germany, a nation of 80 million, alone is expected to absorb 800,000 refugees in 2015, making the anticipated contribution from the U.S., a nation of 318 million people, look paltry in comparison.

The USSCB has also asked that an additional 100,000 places be allotted specifically for the Syrian refugees. 

In the meantime, many Catholic Charities have been taking down names of volunteers who call them.

“We’re [also] telling them that you can help refugee families here who have been through similar situations,” McBrayer said.

 

More Help Needed

United Nations sources have told the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper that U.N. refugee agencies are now “financially broke,” with a budget shortfall of more than $12 billion needed to meet the overwhelming crisis.

Joan Rosenhauer, executive vice president of CRS, said spreading public awareness about the crisis is critical to pressuring the U.S. and the international community to make more funding available for the millions of internally displaced persons and refugees and to commit to achieving a diplomatic resolution to the conflict that will allow them to return home.

Rosenhauer said the support CRS has received from thousands of donors, and those reaching out asking how to help, has been “inspiring.”

CRS has been encouraging dioceses, parishes, schools and other Catholic institutions to educate others about the crisis on the ground and how they can support the Church in its response.

“At a time when we are preparing to welcome the Holy Father to the U.S.,” Rosenhauer said, “we must renew our commitment to the Gospel and mirror the love and concern Pope Francis has for those on the margins.” 

Peter Jesserer Smith is the Register’s Washington correspondent.