Mission World - Jan/Feb, 2010
19.01.2009
See migrants as resource, Pope urges
Vatican City (UCAN) - Migrants are a "resource" and not a "problem," Pope Benedict XVI told the Sixth World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees.
"Migrations invite us to focus on the unity of the human family, the value of acceptance, hospitality and love for others," which must find expression in daily gestures of sharing, he said.
Today's worldwide phenomenon of migration should be seen "as a situation favourable to understanding between peoples, and to the building of peace and a form of development that involves every nation."
Pope Benedict XVI greeted 300 participants from five continents, including 28 from 12 Asian countries, in a special audience in the Vatican's Clementine Hall at the start of the Congress.
During the Congress delegates discussed how best to respond pastorally to migrants and refugees in the face of globalization.
"Many migrants abandon their own countries to flee from humanly unacceptable living conditions, yet without finding elsewhere the welcome they were hoping for," the Pope said. "The economic divide between poor countries and industrialized countries is growing ever wider" in today's globalized world, he added.
The global economic crisis has also worsened migrants' plight, reducing even the most precarious work opportunities and sending unemployment skyrocketing. "How can we not stop and reflect on the consequences of a society founded exclusively on material development?" Pope Benedict XVI asked.
More than 200 million people worldwide live in a country other than the land of their birth, while 33 million people are refugees, asylum seekers, exiles, or internally displaced, said congress host Archbishop Antonio Maria Veglio.
The president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People noted that at least 15% of all migrants "are estimated to be involved in illegal immigration which unfortunately is often fed by a parallel market of human trafficking and smuggling."
"The protection and promotion of human rights" of migrants and refugees is an urgent task given "the persistence of exploitation, discrimination and abuse," he said.
Missionaries are migrants
Columbans have been actively involved with migrant people in different parts of the world for the past 90 years. In the Old Testament the book of Deuteronomy states, "...he secures justice for the fatherless and the widow, and he shows love towards the alien who lives among you, giving him food and clothing. You too must show love towards the alien" (Deut 10:18-19).
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