In giving his blessing at the inaugural ceremonies for the Great Hunger Memorial, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley compared the 19th-century Irish children who arrived on “orphan ships” to “those children at the borders of our country who are fleeing oppression and hunger, and whose parents are making a supreme sacrifice to save their lives and give them a new future.”
O’Malley said that Saturday’s somber remembrance was a reminder of “our interdependence and our interconnectedness, how we are connected to one another and connected to the people that died on this island and were buried here.”
He said he hoped the recognition of those connections would open hearts, adding, “We pray that immigrants coming today will receive a welcome, a welcome from a people that have made that difficult journey and whose families have suffered, and who are open to being brothers and sisters to those who are arriving from every part of this globe,” a prayer that drew applause from the crowd.