Migrant workers

The horrific case of Angelika Kluk's brutal murder in Glasgow has highlighted once again the perilous conditions confronted by migrant workers in Ireland and the UK. How far has our world progressed, when poor people are lured into leaving family and friends in the home areas in order to work for very little, to be exploited and encounter unspeakable danger?

There is a fair degree of "finger-pointing" going on at the moment in the aftermath of the arrest of a known sex offender. Blame is being spread quite liberally - but that's not going to bring Angelika back is it?

There are no doubt some really sick people who say that, had Angelika stayed in her native Poland she would still be safe and sound, and that she brought the horror onto herself by "taking" a job that might have been done by a Scottish, English or Irish person. Do such people also believe that there would be no sex abuse of children if there were no children or that there would be no rape if there no women? But then there would be no more human beings would there?
Such mentally ill people do exist - sadly I know one or two. Some belong to right-wing religious lay groups; at least one is disappointed that he's never been asked to join.

But while I am never shy about criticising the Catholic church as an organisation, I think that the sad case of poor Angelika has really left at least one person, Father Gerry Nugent in Anderston, in the light of a true embodiment of the spirit of the Gospel. He threw his home open to all those who needed shelter. He pursued an "open door" policy, giving shelter to all those who needed in. Fr Nugent has taken the Gospel and the message of Jesus Christ to heart. Those in the Catholic church (and indeed in any other Christian denomination) whose residences are more palatial, and certainly more capacious than his, should do likewise.