Migrants and refugees often are "privileged witnesses of hope through their resilience and trust in God," Pope Leo XIV said.

"Often they maintain their strength while seeking a better future, in spite of the obstacles that they encounter," he said Oct. 2 during a meeting with participants in the conference "Refugees and Migrants in Our Common Home," organized by the Augustinian-run Villanova University in suburban Philadelphia.

The Vatican dicasteries for Promoting Integral Human Development and for Culture and Education and the U.S. bishops' Migration and Refugee Services were among the co-sponsors of the conference, held in Rome Oct. 1-3 just before the Jubilee of Migrants and the Jubilee of Missions Oct. 4-5.

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Pope Leo encouraged participants to share migrants' and refugees' stories of steadfast faith and hope so that they could be "an inspiration for others and assist in developing ways to address the challenges that they have faced in their own lives."

The Pope also returned to a theme he had mentioned in September when discussing migration — the "globalization of powerlessness."

Overcoming the widespread sense that no one can make a difference "requires patience, a willingness to listen, the ability to identify with the pain of others and the recognition that we have the same dreams and the same hopes," Pope Leo XIV told the group. Faced with a growing sense of being unable to change or improve the situation, he said, "we risk becoming immobile, silent and sad, thinking that nothing can be done when we are faced with innocent suffering."

Michele R. Pistone, founder and faculty director of the new Mother Cabrini Institute on Immigration at Villanova, told conference participants that she was inspired by Pope Francis, who called on universities to do more teaching, research and social promotion with migrants and refugees.

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"Now, Pope Leo XIV is again asking us to become missionary disciples working to reconcile a wounded world," Pistone said.

"In order for us to understand the other, we need to meet them and encounter them and have dialogues with them. That's what Pope Francis called us to do, and now Pope Leo is calling us to do."

Sr. Norma Pimentel, a Missionary of Jesus and executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville, Texas, said, migrants "are missionaries of hope to us, because their presence with us honestly sanctifies who and where we are."

People who fear migrants and refugees or are convinced they are migrating just to take jobs from citizens need to take the time to actually meet a newcomer, Pimentel said. Then, "they will stop seeing them as somebody that is invading my space, but rather as somebody who I have the opportunity to be able to show the presence of God."

She has the same message for U.S. President Donald Trump or any political leader, she said: "Please come and see them. Please see their faces. Please see these families that are directly affected by your decisions and your laws and how you feel you must proceed to be as president."

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Addressing the conference Oct. 1, she said that "in a world marked by fear, division and uncertainty, we are invited to be people of hope, pilgrims of hope, of that hope which comes from our trust in the Lord. It is a living force, one that shapes how we see others, how we act and how we respond."

"In this Jubilee Year of Hope, we are called to find within ourselves kindness and compassion and courage, especially courage," Pimentel said.