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Address to the II World Congress |
The
Pastoral Care of Migrants, 1.
"Jesus Christ is the same
today as he was yesterday and as he will be forever" (Heb
13:8). These words of the apostle Paul, chosen as the motto of the Great
Jubilee that has just ended, recall the mission of Jesus, Word incarnate
for the salvation of the world. Faithful to his task in the service of the
Gospel, the Church continues to approach people of all nationalities to
bring them the good news of salvation. With
this present Message, on the occasion of the World Day of Migration, I
wish to reflect on the evangelizing mission of the Church with respect to
the vast and complex phenomenon of emigration and mobility. This year, the
following theme was chosen for the commemoration: The
pastoral care of migrants, a
way to accomplish the mission of the Church today. This is an area
that many pastoral agents have at heart for they know quite well the
numerous problems that are found there. They also know the various
situations that make men and women leave their own country. In fact,
mobility that is chosen freely is one thing; mobility caused by
ideological, political or economic constraint is an entirely different
thing. It is not possible to ignore this in planning and carrying out a
suitable pastoral care for the various categories of migrants and
itinerant people. The
Dicastery, which has the institutional task of expressing the solicitude
of the Church for people involved in the phenomenon, summarizes all of
human mobility with the aforementioned terminology. The term
"migrant" is intended first of all to refer to refugees and
exiles in search of freedom and security outside the confines of their own
country. However, it also refers to young people who study abroad and all
those who leave their own country to look for better conditions of life
elsewhere. The migration phenomenon is in continuous expansion, and this
poses questions and challenges to the pastoral action of the Church
community. The II Vatican Ecumenical Council, in the Decree Christus
Dominus, called for a "special concern … for those among the
faithful who, on account of their way or condition of life, cannot
sufficiently make use of the common and ordinary pastoral service of
parish priests or are totally deprived of it. Among them are very many
migrants, exiles and refugees" (no. 18). In
this complex phenomenon, numerous elements come in: the tendency to foster
the political and juridical unity of the human family, the noteworthy
increase in cultural exchanges, interdependence among States, particularly
in the economic sphere, the liberalization of trade and, above all, of
capital, the multiplication of multinational enterprises, the imbalance
between rich and poor countries, the development of the means of
communication and transportation. 2.
The interplay of such factors produces the movement of masses from one
area of the globe to another. Although in varying forms and degrees,
mobility has thus become a general characteristic of mankind. It directly
involves many persons and reaches others indirectly. The vastness and
complexity of the phenomenon calls for a profound analysis of the
structural changes that have taken place, namely the globalization of
economics and of social life. The convergence of races, civilizations and
cultures within one and the same juridical and social order, poses an
urgent problem of cohabitation. Frontiers tend to disappear, distances are
shortened, the repercussion of events is felt up to the farthest areas. We
are witnessing a profound change in the way of thinking and living, which
cannot but present ambiguous aspects together with the positive elements.
The sense of temporariness, for instance, induces one to prefer what is
new to the detriment of stability and a clear hierarchy of values. At the
same time, the spirit becomes more curious and open, more sensitive and
ready for dialogue. In this climate, people may be induced to deepen their
own convictions, but also to indulge in superficial relativism. Mobility
always implies an uprooting from the original environment, often
translated into an experience of marked solitude accompanied by the risk
of fading into anonymity. This situation may lead to a rejection of the
new environment, but also to accepting it acritically, in contrast to the
preceding experience. At times, there could even be a willingness to
undergo a passive modernization, which could easily be the source of
cultural and social alienation. Human mobility means numerous
possibilities to be open, to meet, to assemble; however it is not possible
to ignore the fact that it also brings about manifestations of individual
and collective rejection, a fruit of closed mentalities that are
encountered in societies beset by imbalance and fear.
3.
In her pastoral activity, the Church tries to take these serious problems
constantly into consideration. The proclamation of the Gospel is directed
towards the integral salvation of the human person, his authentic and
effective liberation, through the achievement of conditions of life
suitable to his dignity. The comprehension of the human being, that the
Church acquired in Christ, urges her to proclaim the fundamental human
rights and to speak out when they are trampled upon. Thus, she does not
grow tired of affirming and defending the dignity of the human person,
highlighting the inalienable rights that originate from it. Specifically,
these are the right to have one’s own country, to live freely in one’s
own country, to live together with one’s family, to have access to the
goods necessary for a dignified life, to preserve and develop one’s
ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage, to publicly profess one’s
religion, to be recognized and treated in all circumstances according to
one’s dignity as a human being. These
rights are concretely employed in the concept of universal common good,
which includes the whole family of peoples, beyond every nationalistic
egoism. The right to emigrate must be considered in this context. The
Church recognizes this right in every human person, in its dual aspect of
the possibility to leave one’s country and the possibility to enter
another country to look for better conditions of life. Certainly, the
exercise of such a right is to be regulated, because practicing it
indiscriminately may do harm and be detrimental to the common good of the
community that receives the migrant. Before the manifold interests that
are interwoven side by side with the laws of the individual countries, it
is necessary to have international norms that are capable of regulating
everyone’s rights, so as to prevent unilateral decisions that are
harmful to the weakest. In
this regard, in the Message for Migrants’ Day of 1993, I called to mind
that although it is true that highly developed countries are not always
able to assimilate all those who emigrate, nonetheless it should be
pointed out that the criterion for determining the level that can be
sustained cannot be based solely on protecting their own prosperity, while
failing to take into consideration the needs of persons who are tragically
forced to ask for hospitality. 4.
Through her own pastoral activity, the Church tries her best not let
migrants lack the light and the support of the Gospel. In the course of
time, her attention towards Catholics who were leaving their country
increased. Most of all towards the end of the XIX century, huge masses of
Catholic migrants left Europe and navigated across the oceans. Sometimes,
they found themselves in conditions that endangered their faith because of
the lack of priests and structures. Not knowing the local language, and
therefore unable to take advantage of the ordinary pastoral care of the
adopted country, they were abandoned to themselves.
Thus,
migration was in fact a danger for the faith, and that caused concern in
many pastors who, in some cases, even reached the point of discouraging
its practice. Later on, however, it became clear that the phenomenon could
not be stopped. Thus the Church sought to introduce adequate forms of
pastoral action, foreseeing that migration could become an effective way
of spreading the faith in other countries. Based on the experience made in
the course of the years, the Church later developed an organic pastoral
care for emigrants and emanated the Apostolic Constitution Exsul
Familia Nazarethana in 1952. Referring to migrants, it affirms that it
is necessary to see to it that they receive the same pastoral care and
assistance enjoyed by the local Christians, by
adapting the structure provided by ordinary pastoral care for the
preservation and growth of the faith of the baptized faithful, to the
Catholic migrant’s situation. Subsequently,
the II Vatican Council tackled the migration phenomenon in its various
expressions: immigrants, emigrants, refugees, exiles, foreign students,
put together, from the pastoral point of view, into the category of those
who dwell outside their own country and therefore cannot
take advantage of ordinary pastoral care. They are described as the
faithful who, because they live outside their own country or nation, need
specific assistance through a priest who speaks their own language. We
move on from considering the faith that is in danger to more aptly
considering the right of the emigrant, to the respect for one’s cultural
heritage even in pastoral care. From this perspective, the limit placed by
Exsul Familia of giving
pastoral assistance only up to the third generation no longer holds, and
the right of migrants to receive assistance as long as real need continues
to exist, is affirmed. In
effect, migrants do not represent a category comparable to those that make
up the parish population – children, youth, married people, laborers,
employees, etc. – who are homogeneous in culture and language. They
belong to another community, which should receive a pastoral care that
bears similarities with that in the country of origin in terms of respect
of the cultural heritage, the need for a priest of the same tongue and the
need for permanent specific structures. It is necessary to have a stable,
personalized and communitarian care of souls, capable of helping the
Catholic faithful at a time of emergency, up to their incorporation into
the local Church, when they will be in the position to take advantage of
the ordinary ministry of priests in the territorial parish. 5.
These principles were included in the canonical regulations in force,
which have incorporated the pastoral care for migrants in the ordinary
pastoral care. Over and above the individual norms, and also as far as the
pastoral care of human mobility is concerned, what characterizes the new
Code is the ecclesiological inspiration of Vatican II underlying it. The
pastoral care of migrants has thus become an institutionalized activity,
addressed to the faithful, considered not so much as individuals, but as
members of a particular community for which the Church organizes a
specific pastoral service. However, this service is, by its very nature,
temporary and transitory, although the law does not set a definite time
for its cessation. The organizational structure of such a service is not a
substitution but is
cumulative with respect to the territorial parochial care, which it is
expected to join sooner or later. In fact, although the pastoral care of
migrants takes into account the fact that a given community has its own
tongue and culture, which cannot be ignored in daily apostolic work, it
does not intend to make their preservation and development its specific
objective. 6.
History shows that in those cases wherein the Catholic faithful were
accompanied during their moved to other countries, they did not only
preserve their faith, but also found a fertile soil to deepen it,
personalize it and bear witness to it through their lives. In the course
of the centuries, migration represented a constant means of proclaiming
the Christian message in entire regions.
Today the picture of migration is radically changing: on one hand,
the flow of Catholic migrants is decreasing; on the other hand, there is
an increasing flow of non-Christian migrants, who settle in countries
where the population is Catholic by majority. In
the Encyclical Redemptoris missio,
I called to mind the task of the Church with respect to non-Christian
migrants, underlining that by settling down, they create new occasions for
contacts and cultural exchanges. These urge the Christian community to
welcome, to dialogue, to help and towards fraternity. This presupposes a
deeper awareness of the
importance of the Catholic doctrine on non-Christian religions (cfr. Decl.
Nostra Aetate), so as to be
able to undertake an attentive, constant and respectful interreligious
dialogue as a means of mutual knowledge and enrichment. “In the light of
the economy of salvation," I wrote in the aforementioned Encyclical Redemptoris
missio, "the Church sees no conflict between proclaiming Christ
and engaging in inter-religious dialogue. Instead she feels the need to
link the two in the context of her mission ad
gentes. These two elements must maintain both their intimate
connection and their distinctiveness; therefore they should not be
confused, manipulated or regarded as identical as though they were
interchangeable” (no.55). 7.
The presence of non-Christian immigrants in countries of ancient
Christianity represents a challenge to the Church communities.
The phenomenon continues to activate charity in the Church, in
terms of welcome and aid for these brothers and sisters in their search
for work and housing. Somehow, this action is quite similar to what many
missionaries are doing in mission lands. They take care of the sick, the
poor, the illiterate. This is the disciple's way: he responds to the
expectations and necessities of the neighbor in need, although the
fundamental aim of his mission is the proclamation of Christ and his
Gospel. He knows that the proclamation of Jesus is the first act of
charity towards the human person, over and above any gesture of
solidarity, however generous it may be. There is no true evangelization,
in fact, “if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, Sometimes,
due to an environment dominated by growing religious relativism and
indifferentism, it is difficult for the spiritual dimension of charitable
undertakings to emerge. Some people fear that doing charity in view of
evangelization could expose them to the accusation of proselytism.
Proclaiming and bearing witness to the Gospel of charity constitutes the
connective tissue of the mission towards migrants (cfr. Ap. Lett.
Novo millennio ineunte, 56).
At
this point, I would like to pay homage to the many apostles who have
consecrated their existence to this missionary task. I would also like to
recall the efforts that the Church has exerted to meet the expectations of
migrants. Among them, I am pleased to mention the International
Catholic Migration Commission, which will be celebrating the 50th
anniversary of its foundation in 2001. In fact, it was instituted in 1951,
by initiative of the then Substitute at the Secretariat of State, Msgr.
Giovanni Battista Montini. It intended to offer a response to the
exigencies of those involved in migratory movements, provoked by the need
to re-propose the production machinery, which was damaged by the war, and
the tragic situation in which entire populations found themselves. They
were forced to move due to the new geopolitical order dictated by the
winners. The association’s fifty years of history, with the
modifications adopted in order to cope better with changing situations,
give witness to how various, attentive and substantial were its
activities. Speaking at its inaugural session held on 5 June 1951, the
future Pope Paul VI dwelt on the necessity to demolish the obstacles that
prevented migration, so as to give the unemployed the possibility to work
and the homeless a shelter. He added that the newborn International
Commission for Migration’s cause was the very cause of Christ himself.
These words have entirely preserved their relevance. As
I give thanks to the Lord for the service it has rendered, I wish that the
said Commission would carry on its commitment of attention and aid to
refugees and migrants, with a vigor that becomes more and more concerned,
the more difficult and uncertain the conditions of these categories of
persons appear to be. 8.
Today, the proclamation of the gospel of charity to the vast and
diversified world of migrants implies a particular attention to the
cultural environment. For many persons, going to a foreign country means
encountering ways of life and thinking that is foreign to them, that
produce different reactions. Cities and nations increasingly present
multiethnic and multicultural communities. This is a great challenge for
Christians, too. A serene reading of this new situation highlights many
values that merit to be greatly appreciated. The Holy Spirit is not
conditioned by ethnic groups or cultures. He enlightens and inspires
people through many mysterious ways. Through various paths, he brings
everyone close to salvation, to Jesus, the Word incarnate, who is “the
fulfilment of the yearning of all the world’s religions and, as such, he
is their sole and definitive completion” (Ap. Lett. Tertio
millennio adveniente, 6). This
reading will surely help the non-Christian migrant see his own religiosity
as a strong element of cultural identity, and at the same time it will
make it possible for him to discover the values of the Christian faith. To
this end, the collaboration of the local Churches and missionaries who
know the immigrants’ culture will be useful more than ever. This means
establishing links between the community of migrants and those of the
countries of origin, and at the same time informing the communities of
arrival regarding the cultures and the religions of the immigrants, and
the reasons that have caused them to emigrate. It
is important to help the community of arrival not only in being open to
charitable hospitality but also to a meeting, collaboration and exchange.
Furthermore, it is opportune to open the way to pastoral agents who, from
the countries of origin, come to the countries of immigration to work
among their fellow countrymen. It would be very useful to institute for
them centers of welcome that would prepare them for their new task. 9.
This enriching intercultural and inter-religious dialogue presupposes a
climate that is permeated with mutual trust and respects religious
freedom. Among the sectors to be illuminated by the light of Christ
therefore is freedom, particularly religious freedom, which is still at
times limited or restricted. It is the premise and guarantee of every
other authentic form of freedom. "Religious freedom" - I wrote
in Redemptoris Missio -
"is not a question of the religion of the majority or the minority,
but of an inalienable right of each and every human person" (no. 39). Freedom
is a constitutive dimension of the Christian faith itself, since it is not
a transmission of human traditions, or a point of arrival of philosophical
discussion, but a free gift of God, which is communicated with due respect
for the human conscience. It is the Lord who acts efficaciously through
his Spirit; it is He who is the true protagonist. People are instruments
that He uses, to each of whom He assigns a singular role. The
Gospel is for everyone. No one is excluded from the possibility of
participating in the joy of the divine Kingdom. The mission of the Church
today is exactly that of giving every human being, regardless of culture
or race, the concrete possibility of meeting Christ. I wholeheartedly wish
that this possibility be offered to all migrants and for this, I assure my
prayers. I
entrust the commitment and the generous intentions of those who take care
of migrants, to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, humble Servant of the Lord, who
lived the pains of migration and exile. In the new millennium, may She be
the guide of migrants towards Him who is "the real light that gives
light to everyone" (Jn
1:9). With
these wishes, I wholeheartedly impart to all agents in this important
field of pastoral action a special Apostolic Blessing. From the Vatican, 2 February 2001 |