Cead mile failte! A hundred thousand welcomes! This wonderful greeting is often taken to be a character reference for the people of Ireland. Some of that trait of hospitality and welcome comes from a national heart that has felt the departure of so many of its kin to other lands. Mary Robinson's lighted candle at a window in the Aras, when she was president of Ireland, enkindled that bond of identity between Irish people far and near, and made us more deeply aware that we are an international people.

Tomorrow is special for Irish people everywhere. But who would have thought that St Patrick would come to mean so much to us when we read in his Confession: "I came to the heathen Irish to spread the Gospel and to endure insults from unbelievers, to hear myself taunted for being a foreigner, (my italics) to experience many persecutions unto bonds and to surrender my free-born self for the benefit of others". (para 37)?

Not only did the people of Ireland cease to taunt Patrick for being a foreigner, we adopted him as our national patron. The adoption of Patrick as a symbol of Irish identity reflects an aspiration to be a people who include the stranger.

That aspiration has been challenged in the last few years especially, following the sizeable increase in the number of non-nationals arriving here. Sadly, their experience of Irishness in contemporary Ireland has too often been not cead mile failte but taunts, insults, and persecutions.

A recent survey has shown that 78 per cent of asylum-seekers and 95 per cent of African asylum-seekers have experienced racially motivated verbal or physical attacks in this State. To their number must be added those who come here as students and who have similarly suffered.

African students have been assaulted on the streets. A young African student on her way to Mass was met at the door of the church by an elderly Irish woman on her way out who told her, "go back to where you came from".

An Irish woman visiting a patient in hospital said to an African student nurse, "we look after our babies and children in Ireland but in your country they are often left to starve". Others have said to these students "you come here to take what you can and leave us your diseases".

These stories from students and survey evidence show that some people presume that because they are white and have been born here they are superior. Such attitudes, feelings, and perspectives, which issue in a particular kind of violence, can be called the "inner leprosy of racism". And it violates the life which Jesus shared with us.

Christianity is the faith and religion of the great majority of people on this island. A recent survey showed that over four-fifths of the population said that religion mattered to them and over three-fifths said that they go to Mass regularly. But what kind of Christianity are people attached to and oriented by?

Irish racism suggests that there are solid grounds for believing that our society lacks vital contact with the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus showed courageous love for those who were excluded or treated as inferior in the society of his time.

These included the Samaritans, the poor, women, lepers, and the wounded. Jesus saw clearly that these groups of people were victimised but he also saw their qualities, gifts, talents, and the benefits they could bring to others.

There are two biblical stories about Samaritans in the life of Jesus. Both help to show what being with Jesus means in Ireland today, as people of different races and colours come in increasing numbers to live, study, or work here. The Jews despised the Samaritans, but the Samaritan in each of the stories connects people with the surprising, even subversive, love of God.

The better known story is that of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). It challenges us to revise our categories concerning people and calls us to see that we ourselves may be the ones to lose out if we fail to recognise the courage, compassion, generosity, and solidarity of those we may be moved to exclude.

On a deeper level still the story tells us that the arrival of the stranger, the outsider, may be an experience of God's love for those assaulted and left abandoned by their own people.

Jesus himself was the Good Samaritan for he became an outsider to many by the way he loved. The second biblical story concerning a Samaritan, which is told in John 4:142, illustrates this point. Jesus goes against two taboos of the time, he speaks to a woman in public and she is a Samaritan. As a result she becomes a missionary to her people, leads them to meet Jesus, and they become committed to him.

This story challenges us to recognise the gifts and leadership qualities of people whom society can marginalise out of prejudice, ignorance, or fear. It calls us to be like Jesus in changing established patterns of thinking, feeling, deciding, and doing, which can stand in the way of empowering people to do good for themselves and others, including the good of leading people to faith in Jesus.

There are practical problems about how many people Ireland can integrate, and these too have to be dealt with. But the solution needs to go beyond a recent opinion poll which showed that 69 per cent of voters think that only "an absolute minimum" should be allowed to enter this State and this at a time when the economy is doing so well.

The tackling of the practical issues related to the number of refugees Ireland should receive needs to be free of ignorance, fear, selfishness, and racism. These forces do not allow us to recognise that we share a common humanity, can mutually enrich each other and that, as Catholic social teaching continually tries to show, God intended the goods of the world for everyone's benefit.

The Irish Government is at present reviewing its policy and procedures concerning refugees, in particular that policy which prevents the many skilled refugees in our midst from contributing to the economic wellbeing of the State. The hope must be that many more non-nationals will in time be fully integrated into Irish society. Having been a non-national himself, St Patrick is very well placed to be their patron also. Cead mile failte to Ireland, sisters and brothers of St Patrick!

Father Michael O'Sullivan SJ lectures in theology at the Milltown Institute in Dublin.