While intellectually connected with the other paper (focused on the EU context) that I have submitted for this conference, this paper zooms more broadly onto the role of the Catholic church in promoting a more humane and theologically founded global governance of migration that cannot and should not be understood in a simplistic way as 'open borders'. This paper has both a historical and a policy analysis dimension. It traces the continuities and discontinuities of the Catholic church discourse and practical initiatives to support migrants and refugees in the course of the 20th and 21st centuries. It does so, first, by reviewing papal documents as well as activities by charitable organisations connected to the Catholic church such as ICMC and Caritas. Secondly it zooms onto the intensification of the Catholic church's attention to migration and refugee issues during the pontificate of Pope Francis and analyses specific contributions that he made not only in relation to EU policies and Mediterranean crossings but also in global fora such as the UN (around the global Compact for Migrants and Refugees), and in the internal architecture of the Holy See, by creating the new Dicastery on Integral Human Development , and also by intervening against restrictive US border policies. Ultimately the paper pays attention to the centrality of the notion of 'mercy' in driving the church logic and in challenging traditional diplomacy and power politics as well as illiberal forces in global politics