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Join with me in prayer and remembrance as we mark more than 180 years since the start of the Great Famine in Ireland. It is difficult, even from the distance of many generations, to contemplate the enormity of the disaster that left more than a million dead and forced many more into a shadow existence of workhouses and privation.

Neither did the million who boarded ships to anywhere hope might lie find a warm welcome in their new countries. Shunned because of their faith and their poverty, many were told they “need not apply” for work. Still, the gifts they brought and their perseverance have enriched every place they found refuge, however grudging.

As we observe this sad anniversary, let us also remember that what turned an agricultural failure into human tragedy was the reality that their government stood by and watched it happen without meaningful response.

As then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair remarked in 1997, 160 years later, “That one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today.”

We must pray that we feel that pain and resolve that this inhumanity not be repeated in our time, that future generations do not look back on the history of our nation and rank our present actions among those that stain its reputation. This country of immigrants can choose to ignore its past mistakes – all vigorously justified at the time – and add another to our national sins. Or we can live up to our ideals as Americans and Catholics and find a compassionate path forward.

Today let us both rejoice in the gifts the Irish have given the United States and acknowledge the suffering that brought so many to our shores. We lift our voices in the name of Jesus, carried as his refugee parents fled their homeland in search of safety for their Son. And we commit to welcoming those who follow their example today.