Three key points of engagement
Speech Monsignor Luigi Petris CEO Migrantes Foundation Tuesday, April 12, 2005 at the Congress of Bellaria
Others before me have asked the greetings, with best wishes 
work, to all of you participating in this conference. I do my greetings and best wishes, exempting them from repeating them, even if you feel strong within me the push I would say almost instinctively turn to each of you, especially as many of your faces are well known to me and I recall moments and perhaps long years of friendship and working together. A special greeting
work, to all of you participating in this conference. I do my greetings and best wishes, exempting them from repeating them, even if you feel strong within me the push I would say almost instinctively turn to each of you, especially as many of your faces are well known to me and I recall moments and perhaps long years of friendship and working together. A special greeting address to the bishops present. Your presence is a sign of respect you have for our work among and with migrants. Of this we are sincerely grateful.
I have attended many conferences on migration. Among the many that we are celebrating this has a value and a physiognomy of its very special and I am convinced that it was worth giving up the usual national meetings this year to make room for this European meeting. The reasons are several. A special meeting
I enunciate as the first reason, the tribute to Pope John Paul II as soon as the deceased. He has done so much and so much said in favor of migrants and those who do apostolic service among them. One need only recall the Jubilee of migrants in June 2000, the thought - on the occasion of his many apostolic journeys - to people who are forced to be away from your country of origin and in particular posts for the World Day of Migration. That of 2005, the twentieth, it seems to give a certain completeness to the Pope's thinking on migration and establish an updated compendium, so he proceeded to make Migrantes, third edition, published in full in the folder that you do not realize that the twentieth message was the last of series.
Another reason is to make us feel, through this conference, the voice of the Italian Church. The great world of migration in our civil society and the Church also is likely to be forgotten, if not removed, as a "minority" on which dominates a "majority society", in front of which the minorities count for very little, indeed they are often seen disturbing elements and weight, sometimes even of danger and pollution. We are here to repeat once again, with strong and clear words of the late John Paul II, that migration is an "urgent challenge to the Christian community, which makes attention to migrants and refugees one of its pastoral priorities "(Message for the GMM, 1998).
But the specific reason that makes us find together these days is to listen with us, reflect together, to compare our experiences, including our difficulties, our history, our diverse and yet so similar fields work to better define the path and prospects for the future. A conference, in fact, within a European "between past and future", which brings together the experience of those who for decades worked with the Italians abroad and who now is dealing with immigrants who come knocking at the doors of our community.
attention, first place, of course focuses on the memory of emigration, the Italian one, that has lasted for over a century but continues in the present, taking in all its implications even less positive than it has something to teach for those who are now engaged with immigrants in Italy: it will be really "Magistra vitae".
But the current immigrant presence in Italy, with the variety of faces with which he presents the equally rich variety of pastoral initiatives which postulates, may have something to say to anyone who is operating beyond the Alps, so that our pastoral service to ' External asks us constantly updated pastoral style and formulas. In short, a memory that makes light on the future, but also a future, some already existing, which clears the memory.
will then diocesan directors, regional and national Migrantes to keep open our horizons on other areas of human mobility, which are very important in number and seriousness of problems, with further growth expected as the EU expands. Consider, for example, what will result in a few years the free movement of labor extended to some Eastern European countries with high concentration of nomadic people.
That said, I spend a few words about some of what I consider of primary importance and urgency, even based on my personal experience, beginning with my first years of priesthood as a missionary among immigrants in Germany and then to Rome in the Migrantes with the possibility of me on all fronts of human mobility.
need a specific pastoral care
1. First I am keen to reaffirm against migrants Catholics need a specific pastoral care in the context of a pastoral communion with the local Church in which they operate and which one belongs. This ministry may involve various modes of implementation, bearing in mind that the cure of souls with the Mission or Chaplaincy canonically established already belong to the local Church in its own right, like the territorial parish. Here the question becomes delicate, but vital: all agree, nobody is opposed to the specific pastoral care, but when it comes to implement it, so that this ministry could not remain an empty but becomes a real life for our people in the community then you discover the tombs and you see those who believe and those who talk so much to fill his mouth, who believes that human faces, which needs a specific word, he wants to express how God has done in its culture and in its language, its tradition, or if we impose our culture that we feel superior.
Integration, inclusion and other similar terms have a legitimate value, but can also be used in the sense ambiguous or even distorted, when for example the ethnic pastoral and pastoral structures for granting others were considered benign and not as a genuine right of the Catholic Bishop's Curia, or when a foreign proceed on his own initiative and without prior consultation and without prior effort of understanding to substantially change the physiognomy of these communities, ethnic or declare come to an end. It is agreed that the integration into the ecclesial society, as in the civil, it is good, but it must be gradual and spontaneous, can be encouraged and impressed, but not tax. Against ethnic communities, which are in the minority, often complains about the risk of ghettoization and there can be no objective reasons for doing so. But even in the territorial parish may be lurking in the same risk, when in fact it is decided that the only expression of the Church in the area: the parishes that are true strongholds, leaving no penetrating people if not most unnatural. The Bible says to first remove the beam from your eye and then the speck of small and weak foreign communities.
is not a compromise but a harmonization between the two needs, one tied specifically to safeguard the dignity of these immigrants and minorities than the tax payable by the communion that involves close communication, warmth of relationships and genuine collaboration between these two ecclesial realities. Fixed point of reference is the first message of the Holy Father on the Day of Migration, in 1986 dedicated to the "Law of the faithful free to migrant integration Church, completed, if you will, by several other messages, especially from that already reminded of 2005, "The integration between cultures."
on this important aspect of ministry I would remind my text published on SM 2 / 2004 in which - among others - commenting on a letter from the Bishop of Brooklyn, Bishop N. DiMarzio, I argue that it is not for any fixed maturity dates and times for the integration of a person or an ethnic group. It is a fundamental right of individual or group to decide freely the time of its incorporation. Of pastoral commitment is to make an authentic Christian experience and the migrant community that welcomes it. This is primarily a need for true fellowship and communion. When a stranger and an entire ethnic group will feel welcomed, valued, appreciated, then the integration will be a logical consequence, will take place spontaneously.
But let's not forget the admonition of the Holy Father: "In the context of immigration, any attempt to accelerate or delay the integration or at least the inclusion ... can only stifle or desirable to affect the number of entries, which flows from the right to freedom of integration that migrants have the faithful in every particular Church ... "(John Paul II, Message GMM 1986). These statements are not mine, but the Pope!
missionary
2. I want to emphasize a second note characterizes the pastoral care of migrants: its very nature missionary. They text on this point the classical documents of the Holy See, from clear and incisive words of the late John Paul II in Redemptoris Missio "(cf. No. 37 and 82) until the recent Instruction Erga migrantes caritas Christi. The Italian Church in his later work is no less explicit, as in "Communicating the Gospel in a Changing World" (2001), where it says that with migration, "Christians are called to face a substantially new and important chapter of the missionary task" (n. 58). Additionally, for the last pastoral note of the CEI: "The face of mission parishes in a changing world", the Migrantes has made every effort to highlight the fact that migration is mainly to give a providential opportunity for our diocese and parishes really show this face to move from a pastoral and missionary for the conservation of a pastoral evangelization.
Unfortunately, with regard to the pastoral care of migrants engaging among Italians abroad, seems to be failed in our churches this characteristic of mission. A decade ago in a conference held in Rome on "The mission of the diocesan clergy the" Migrantes was not invited. Invited only the priests were "Fidei donum": they were missionaries, not us!? A program called Bishop Alfred M. Garson, President of the CEMI-Migrantes, managed to enter with an S. Mass and a farewell.
I have attended many conferences on migration. Among the many that we are celebrating this has a value and a physiognomy of its very special and I am convinced that it was worth giving up the usual national meetings this year to make room for this European meeting. The reasons are several. A special meeting
I enunciate as the first reason, the tribute to Pope John Paul II as soon as the deceased. He has done so much and so much said in favor of migrants and those who do apostolic service among them. One need only recall the Jubilee of migrants in June 2000, the thought - on the occasion of his many apostolic journeys - to people who are forced to be away from your country of origin and in particular posts for the World Day of Migration. That of 2005, the twentieth, it seems to give a certain completeness to the Pope's thinking on migration and establish an updated compendium, so he proceeded to make Migrantes, third edition, published in full in the folder that you do not realize that the twentieth message was the last of series.
Another reason is to make us feel, through this conference, the voice of the Italian Church. The great world of migration in our civil society and the Church also is likely to be forgotten, if not removed, as a "minority" on which dominates a "majority society", in front of which the minorities count for very little, indeed they are often seen disturbing elements and weight, sometimes even of danger and pollution. We are here to repeat once again, with strong and clear words of the late John Paul II, that migration is an "urgent challenge to the Christian community, which makes attention to migrants and refugees one of its pastoral priorities "(Message for the GMM, 1998).
But the specific reason that makes us find together these days is to listen with us, reflect together, to compare our experiences, including our difficulties, our history, our diverse and yet so similar fields work to better define the path and prospects for the future. A conference, in fact, within a European "between past and future", which brings together the experience of those who for decades worked with the Italians abroad and who now is dealing with immigrants who come knocking at the doors of our community.
attention, first place, of course focuses on the memory of emigration, the Italian one, that has lasted for over a century but continues in the present, taking in all its implications even less positive than it has something to teach for those who are now engaged with immigrants in Italy: it will be really "Magistra vitae".
But the current immigrant presence in Italy, with the variety of faces with which he presents the equally rich variety of pastoral initiatives which postulates, may have something to say to anyone who is operating beyond the Alps, so that our pastoral service to ' External asks us constantly updated pastoral style and formulas. In short, a memory that makes light on the future, but also a future, some already existing, which clears the memory.
will then diocesan directors, regional and national Migrantes to keep open our horizons on other areas of human mobility, which are very important in number and seriousness of problems, with further growth expected as the EU expands. Consider, for example, what will result in a few years the free movement of labor extended to some Eastern European countries with high concentration of nomadic people.
That said, I spend a few words about some of what I consider of primary importance and urgency, even based on my personal experience, beginning with my first years of priesthood as a missionary among immigrants in Germany and then to Rome in the Migrantes with the possibility of me on all fronts of human mobility.
need a specific pastoral care
1. First I am keen to reaffirm against migrants Catholics need a specific pastoral care in the context of a pastoral communion with the local Church in which they operate and which one belongs. This ministry may involve various modes of implementation, bearing in mind that the cure of souls with the Mission or Chaplaincy canonically established already belong to the local Church in its own right, like the territorial parish. Here the question becomes delicate, but vital: all agree, nobody is opposed to the specific pastoral care, but when it comes to implement it, so that this ministry could not remain an empty but becomes a real life for our people in the community then you discover the tombs and you see those who believe and those who talk so much to fill his mouth, who believes that human faces, which needs a specific word, he wants to express how God has done in its culture and in its language, its tradition, or if we impose our culture that we feel superior.
Integration, inclusion and other similar terms have a legitimate value, but can also be used in the sense ambiguous or even distorted, when for example the ethnic pastoral and pastoral structures for granting others were considered benign and not as a genuine right of the Catholic Bishop's Curia, or when a foreign proceed on his own initiative and without prior consultation and without prior effort of understanding to substantially change the physiognomy of these communities, ethnic or declare come to an end. It is agreed that the integration into the ecclesial society, as in the civil, it is good, but it must be gradual and spontaneous, can be encouraged and impressed, but not tax. Against ethnic communities, which are in the minority, often complains about the risk of ghettoization and there can be no objective reasons for doing so. But even in the territorial parish may be lurking in the same risk, when in fact it is decided that the only expression of the Church in the area: the parishes that are true strongholds, leaving no penetrating people if not most unnatural. The Bible says to first remove the beam from your eye and then the speck of small and weak foreign communities.
is not a compromise but a harmonization between the two needs, one tied specifically to safeguard the dignity of these immigrants and minorities than the tax payable by the communion that involves close communication, warmth of relationships and genuine collaboration between these two ecclesial realities. Fixed point of reference is the first message of the Holy Father on the Day of Migration, in 1986 dedicated to the "Law of the faithful free to migrant integration Church, completed, if you will, by several other messages, especially from that already reminded of 2005, "The integration between cultures."
on this important aspect of ministry I would remind my text published on SM 2 / 2004 in which - among others - commenting on a letter from the Bishop of Brooklyn, Bishop N. DiMarzio, I argue that it is not for any fixed maturity dates and times for the integration of a person or an ethnic group. It is a fundamental right of individual or group to decide freely the time of its incorporation. Of pastoral commitment is to make an authentic Christian experience and the migrant community that welcomes it. This is primarily a need for true fellowship and communion. When a stranger and an entire ethnic group will feel welcomed, valued, appreciated, then the integration will be a logical consequence, will take place spontaneously.
But let's not forget the admonition of the Holy Father: "In the context of immigration, any attempt to accelerate or delay the integration or at least the inclusion ... can only stifle or desirable to affect the number of entries, which flows from the right to freedom of integration that migrants have the faithful in every particular Church ... "(John Paul II, Message GMM 1986). These statements are not mine, but the Pope!
missionary
2. I want to emphasize a second note characterizes the pastoral care of migrants: its very nature missionary. They text on this point the classical documents of the Holy See, from clear and incisive words of the late John Paul II in Redemptoris Missio "(cf. No. 37 and 82) until the recent Instruction Erga migrantes caritas Christi. The Italian Church in his later work is no less explicit, as in "Communicating the Gospel in a Changing World" (2001), where it says that with migration, "Christians are called to face a substantially new and important chapter of the missionary task" (n. 58). Additionally, for the last pastoral note of the CEI: "The face of mission parishes in a changing world", the Migrantes has made every effort to highlight the fact that migration is mainly to give a providential opportunity for our diocese and parishes really show this face to move from a pastoral and missionary for the conservation of a pastoral evangelization.
Unfortunately, with regard to the pastoral care of migrants engaging among Italians abroad, seems to be failed in our churches this characteristic of mission. A decade ago in a conference held in Rome on "The mission of the diocesan clergy the" Migrantes was not invited. Invited only the priests were "Fidei donum": they were missionaries, not us!? A program called Bishop Alfred M. Garson, President of the CEMI-Migrantes, managed to enter with an S. Mass and a farewell.
This widespread way of thinking is harmful because even the pastoral work among the Italians in the world is a missionary work, missionary true, pure, hard, in the truest sense of the word. Let me remind you don Giancarlo, who came from Africa was among the Italians in the secular city of Birmingham (GB) and one day I said: "In Africa, in the middle of my niggaz, I was a priest, king and prophet, there are no Nothing, nothing. " It is my custom to commit at Christmas and Easter in one of several Italian Catholic Mission. I remember once in Mons (B), Good Friday, while we celebrate the memory of the Lord's death at 15, the caravan passes the carnival with majorettes, legs up, with the confetti, the music etc.. etc.. After the liturgy we leave the church and a Calabrian, as if to apologize to me said, "We Excuse me, father, here we are in Italy. " "Do not apologize, it's past the carnival of Friday, here is a missionary," I replied.
Our communities abroad while the weak and simple, have a deep sense of religiosity that could be one of the best ways to implement the re-evangelization of Europe and we keep hearing about why the Pope has invited both to engage . I think it is urgent that our local churches recover a sense of mission for a commitment to the pastoral care of migration among Italians abroad. To evangelize our people need to be supported, to be remembered for the great gift received by faith. As missionaries of migrants have worked very hard and (if necessary) back to do it, but our first task was to keep alive the faith of our people. This is also a duty of churches to start! It is a must! It is irresponsible, I would say, remove this duty from the Churches starting with the excuse that does not have priests. No one expects the replacement of every priest who falls in Italy. But there are millions of Italians abroad that our call for a priestly presence. If the bishops and local churches say they really love these Italians abroad, then send the priests. If you do not send them to demonstrate a love of words only, not confirmed by the facts. Hence the need in the future and the CEMI Migrantes to engage because our local Churches retrieve the belief that engaging in pastoral work with our overseas migration, play a purely missionary task of the Church. Faithful
with our people
3. "Being faithful to the people entrusted to us:" this is a word addressed directly to the missionaries who daily bear direct this "specific pastoral care for, among and with migrants", as we find repeated in the aforementioned papal Education (No. 100 ). Missionaries are fellow travelers, beyond any rhetoric they say that migrants with migrants, as well as in the Christian life, we are burden of their problems and needs, their dignity and their rights in both civil and ecclesial.
The effectiveness of our work depends so missionaries by the Grace of God, but even if we are to people, if we walk with people where we live and feel, we rejoice and suffer with the people! If we are only heads and teachers, our word will slip away and not enter into the hearts of the people to whom we must preach the message of salvation. The message of salvation through this everyday human closeness that unites and unites. There is a passage that Moses makes an impression! The patriarch, tired and disappointed of his people tried to leave him. But Moses responds saying: "But now, if you will forgive their sin ... And if not, erase me from your book that you wrote" (see Exodus 32.32. Es also from 32.11 to 14). I think this could also be our motto: as pastors is almost better to not exist than betray their own people. Today, throughout Europe pulls a cold wind against migrants. The Christian community is tempted to ignore them, to isolate them. As missionaries and pastors are called to be faithful to this our people to restore their dignity as human beings.
I close by bringing an example of faithfulness! The Migrantes, as you know, care sectors, one of which is that of the Gypsies: We currently have 13 communities of priests, nuns and lay people who live with the gypsies in Italy, and just live with them. Not that they're there to make the catechism, even if they do so if necessary. They live with the gypsies to say that their life is, that they, too - the outcasts of society - are children of God! Saints social esteem in 1600 and 1800, I have nothing against the mass gatherings that can bring healthy shock to the world and the Church. However, I believe that our Church today must first recover a bit 'of interiority and spirituality which is to live in hiding, is to be faithful to Christ and to the people, in silence. Retrieve the value of those saints who were remembered after their death. As Charles De Foucauld who chose to live with the Tuaregs in the desert, who lived without doing great things and who died in a stupid way. Living in a gypsy camp, or in the desert with Tuareg ... Here, many of you have lived like this, nobody will write the story of your life, but you will witness the faithfulness of the Lord remained faithful to your people, what the Lord has entrusted to him: "May the Lord take me off the book of life rather than betray my people." What is not easy even for us, we have a collar, a cross, a designer ties and is easy to distinguish ourselves, who treat us well, that does not suffer as they suffer. But without pride strive to "be with them," this will be "Feel to them" that will pass the message of Christ, a message of universal brotherhood and salvation. We here at Bellaria
to give us a hand to each of us makes news, I would say encouraging news, the word addressed by the risen Christ to Peter, "Feed my sheep", and also the words: "Strengthen your brothers" convinced that the first brothers to be confirmed are those who share our apostolic labors. We are not heroes, it was not even Peter, we experience our limitations and our weaknesses, but we really place our trust in the Risen One and we feel he repeated, in full Easter spirit: "Go into all the world." A "go" the plural, full of collegiality and fellowship, which encourages us, in fact, to give us a hand to each other. Over the Easter wishes, expressed through Migrants-press in late March, the conference participants were invited to ask not the question: "What I will take away from Bellaria", but rather the reverse question: "What I want to bring my brothers Bellaria? "question of taste more evangelical because it recalls the words of Jesus:" It is more blessed to give than to receive. " Therefore wishes to give to each of us in generous measure, because we will be countered by even more abundant.
Our communities abroad while the weak and simple, have a deep sense of religiosity that could be one of the best ways to implement the re-evangelization of Europe and we keep hearing about why the Pope has invited both to engage . I think it is urgent that our local churches recover a sense of mission for a commitment to the pastoral care of migration among Italians abroad. To evangelize our people need to be supported, to be remembered for the great gift received by faith. As missionaries of migrants have worked very hard and (if necessary) back to do it, but our first task was to keep alive the faith of our people. This is also a duty of churches to start! It is a must! It is irresponsible, I would say, remove this duty from the Churches starting with the excuse that does not have priests. No one expects the replacement of every priest who falls in Italy. But there are millions of Italians abroad that our call for a priestly presence. If the bishops and local churches say they really love these Italians abroad, then send the priests. If you do not send them to demonstrate a love of words only, not confirmed by the facts. Hence the need in the future and the CEMI Migrantes to engage because our local Churches retrieve the belief that engaging in pastoral work with our overseas migration, play a purely missionary task of the Church. Faithful
with our people
3. "Being faithful to the people entrusted to us:" this is a word addressed directly to the missionaries who daily bear direct this "specific pastoral care for, among and with migrants", as we find repeated in the aforementioned papal Education (No. 100 ). Missionaries are fellow travelers, beyond any rhetoric they say that migrants with migrants, as well as in the Christian life, we are burden of their problems and needs, their dignity and their rights in both civil and ecclesial.
The effectiveness of our work depends so missionaries by the Grace of God, but even if we are to people, if we walk with people where we live and feel, we rejoice and suffer with the people! If we are only heads and teachers, our word will slip away and not enter into the hearts of the people to whom we must preach the message of salvation. The message of salvation through this everyday human closeness that unites and unites. There is a passage that Moses makes an impression! The patriarch, tired and disappointed of his people tried to leave him. But Moses responds saying: "But now, if you will forgive their sin ... And if not, erase me from your book that you wrote" (see Exodus 32.32. Es also from 32.11 to 14). I think this could also be our motto: as pastors is almost better to not exist than betray their own people. Today, throughout Europe pulls a cold wind against migrants. The Christian community is tempted to ignore them, to isolate them. As missionaries and pastors are called to be faithful to this our people to restore their dignity as human beings.
I close by bringing an example of faithfulness! The Migrantes, as you know, care sectors, one of which is that of the Gypsies: We currently have 13 communities of priests, nuns and lay people who live with the gypsies in Italy, and just live with them. Not that they're there to make the catechism, even if they do so if necessary. They live with the gypsies to say that their life is, that they, too - the outcasts of society - are children of God! Saints social esteem in 1600 and 1800, I have nothing against the mass gatherings that can bring healthy shock to the world and the Church. However, I believe that our Church today must first recover a bit 'of interiority and spirituality which is to live in hiding, is to be faithful to Christ and to the people, in silence. Retrieve the value of those saints who were remembered after their death. As Charles De Foucauld who chose to live with the Tuaregs in the desert, who lived without doing great things and who died in a stupid way. Living in a gypsy camp, or in the desert with Tuareg ... Here, many of you have lived like this, nobody will write the story of your life, but you will witness the faithfulness of the Lord remained faithful to your people, what the Lord has entrusted to him: "May the Lord take me off the book of life rather than betray my people." What is not easy even for us, we have a collar, a cross, a designer ties and is easy to distinguish ourselves, who treat us well, that does not suffer as they suffer. But without pride strive to "be with them," this will be "Feel to them" that will pass the message of Christ, a message of universal brotherhood and salvation. We here at Bellaria
to give us a hand to each of us makes news, I would say encouraging news, the word addressed by the risen Christ to Peter, "Feed my sheep", and also the words: "Strengthen your brothers" convinced that the first brothers to be confirmed are those who share our apostolic labors. We are not heroes, it was not even Peter, we experience our limitations and our weaknesses, but we really place our trust in the Risen One and we feel he repeated, in full Easter spirit: "Go into all the world." A "go" the plural, full of collegiality and fellowship, which encourages us, in fact, to give us a hand to each other. Over the Easter wishes, expressed through Migrants-press in late March, the conference participants were invited to ask not the question: "What I will take away from Bellaria", but rather the reverse question: "What I want to bring my brothers Bellaria? "question of taste more evangelical because it recalls the words of Jesus:" It is more blessed to give than to receive. " Therefore wishes to give to each of us in generous measure, because we will be countered by even more abundant.
