the head of the Roman Catholic Church, addressing  a ceremony on Sunday for about 10,000 people in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican City, compared refugees to Mary and Joseph, who had to travel from the Biblical city of Nazareth to Bethlehem but found no place to stay.

He said many refugees, the number of whom stands at 22 million worldwide, were being forced to flee from leaders who “see no problem in shedding innocent blood.”

Francis drew a parallel between the biblical story and the developments in the world today, including conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, human trafficking, Myanmar’s state-sponsored ethnic cleansing campaign against its Rohingya Muslims and the US travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries.