José Traquina, bishop of Santarém, acknowledges, however, that, in some areas, "the Portuguese people are afraid when these foreigners do not want to integrate".

"The experience we have of the presence of [for example] Brazilians, Ukrainians, Moldovans, is that they are integrated, without any problem, the children in school without any problem. Integration is easy. The Portuguese have an ease of welcoming, they have already shown that", says the bishop in an interview with the Lusa agency, adding that "there are situations that are complicated".

"We can identify situations of people from some countries who are reluctant to integrate", he says, giving the example of Indian citizens, "with another identity", who often "do not want help", namely from Cáritas.

On the other hand, he acknowledges that everything is easier when these immigrants come to Portugal as a family. In these cases, "the children will meet other children and the families have to get closer for various reasons, it is easier. Now, if only groups of men come, it scares. Not having women close to them scares a bit".

Many of these immigrants are at the mercy of networks that exploit them, with the institutions of the Catholic Church, namely Cáritas - the structure is present in all dioceses of the country -, "doing what it can" to help those people and to "draw attention to some situations of human exploitation".

However, from then on, that is an area of intervention that is the responsibility of the State.

"There are issues here that the State must resolve", such as "supervision, how people come, who brings people to Portugal, the identification of people, who accompanies them, who ensures their identification, issues that have to do with health... Then, stability, because they come to work, they are necessary, but they come to work for how many months, is it the whole year, is it only six months and then they are left with nothing to do? Here we cannot replace the State. We can observe and draw attention, but we do not have the competence to identify, we cannot act as inspectors", says José Traquina.

The bishop also regrets that the observations made are often not taken into consideration and gives an example: "in the Alentejo, namely in the Baixo Alentejo, the Diocesan Cáritas of Beja had drawn attention to this a long time ago, even before the Odemira issue exploded socially. And there was no attention paid to the observations of that Diocesan Cáritas".

For the president of the Episcopal Commission for Social Pastoral and Human Mobility, it is also evident "the feeling [of] that the change from the end of SEF [Foreigners and Borders Service] to an agency [Agency for the Integration of Migrations and Asylum]" has not brought improvements.

And as for the anti-immigration positions that are emerging, José Traquina makes a point of recalling the centuries-old tradition, namely in Lisbon, where Muslims, Jews and Christians have always lived peacefully.

"We cannot have the attitude of a culture in which we cannot dialogue with other cultures. We have a tradition in which people from a different culture can understand each other. If we have common points, such as life and peace, then we can live in the same city", he adds.

Rejecting the discourse that, among the thousands of foreigners seeking Portugal, there are "many criminals in the middle", the bishop responsible for the area of Social Pastoral says he is convinced that "people really want to be happy, want to live... want to look for what they do not have in their countries".

"There are huge differences in life in the [different] continents, in the countries. That is the problem. If people risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe, it means that life there [in their countries of origin] has no value, makes no sense. And this, for them, is a hope, it is finding a place to live and with some hope also for those they leave there", concludes José Traquina.

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