Why Birmingham?

Mauricio Silva (right) with Shi'a and Sunny, Muslim leaders. Photo: Mauricio Silva

Nurturing “life-giving relationships between people of different faiths and backgrounds” has been identified over the past decades as one of the Region of Britain’s mission priorities. This priority is mainly, but not exclusively, lived out in Birmingham.

The city of Birmingham stands among Europe's largest multicultural cities. The 2021 census identified that the city’s ethnic minorities represent more than 50% of the total population. Academics and politicians now use the term “super-diverse” to describe the city. This points not only to the realisation that minority communities represent a majority in the city but also to the fact that these changes have happened at a speed and on a scale not seen elsewhere before.

No wonder that Birmingham’s super-diversity has become a special “locus” for Columban mission, where the Columban missionary outreach has translated into supporting and accompanying newly arrived communities, offering hospitality for asylum seekers and refugees, as well as hosting meaningful encounters with people of other faiths.

How have we done it? Throughout the years, many ordained and lay Columban missionaries have ministered to these periferias existenciales (existential peripheries), a Spanish term proposed by the late Pope Francis to describe those vulnerable groups that are excluded in church and society. Although left out by political, sociological and economic structures, these groups should be at the core of the church’s missionary endeavours and strategies, Pope Francis insisted.

This is a call to walk away from the centres of power, influence and wealth, stripping ourselves of the privileges that make us complicit in exclusionary structures. From that perspective, these peripheries can be found in any context, even in the “wealthy” UK, the fifth largest economy in the world. Birmingham - the UK’s second-largest city - has a power of attraction that paradoxically matches with its opposite: its power to alienate and isolate large sections of society.

Journeying into those existential peripheries in this city for more than two decades has meant that Columbans in Birmingham have had to learn how to side with those on the margins. And we have done it by supporting community initiatives in poor and highly diverse areas in the city, accompanying people who seek sanctuary, and building bridges with faith communities who feel alienated and detached. Coming face-to-face with people confronting these challenges - making ourselves available to spend time with them - has helped us to listen deeply to people’s real concerns and hopes. In those hopes and fears, we seek to hear the calling to - and the signs of - God’s reign in this part of the world.

Acknowledging the contribution that this part of the Columban world makes to the global fundraising efforts of the Society, Columbans assigned to work here join a proud tradition of engagement with local mission. We celebrate this engagement - like many other Columban missions over the past century - and summarise it with Ken Untener’s words (in the prayer often attached to St Oscar Romero’s story): We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

Columban co-worker Mauricio Silva is the Interreligious Dialogue Co-ordinator in Britain.