Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bogota (Agenzia Fides) - “Human mobility is today one of the great signs of the times and we find it under many forms and conditions,” where the Church is called to respond, through the various forms of apostleship of the road and on the streets. This was what Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, affirmed in his opening address given at the First Continental Meeting for Pastoral Care of the Road-Street, being held October 19-24 in Bogota (Colombia). The event is open to all directors of this apostolate in Latin America and the Caribbean (see Fides 16/10/2008).
In his speech, Archbishop Marchetto analyzed the four main areas of apostleship of the road, which will be addressed during the Meeting. Firstly, there are those who are on the road often. According to the Prelate, car accidents kill 1.2 million people in the world each year. This number “excedes that of victims who die from malaria and tuberculosis-related illness.” Moreover, these statistics tend to be on the rise, with all they imply, as they are a great cause of poverty in the region. In fact, “road accidents kill many employed workers who later leave behind families who lack the necessary economic income,” and thus fall into poverty. These events also have a great effect on the nation's future, as they mainly effect youth under the age of 18. “The community-national cost of the deaths from road accidents is about 2% of the gross national product, an unacceptable rate for any country, whether it be poor or developed.” Thus, there is an urgent need for “understanding and being aware of the situation, as well as having the will to do something about it.”
A second category are the women on the street, each of whom is “a human person, who in many cases seek help because selling their body on the street is not something they would have chosen of their own free will. They are people whose lives have been destroyed; they are dead, psychologically and spiritually speaking.” It is a situation that is very widespread in Latin America and the Caribbean and that thanks to globalization, migration, and changes in communication, is now a “less localized and more networked” phenomenon.
The Secretary of the Pontifical Council explained that the problem has worsened due to a rise in “sexual tourism,” that “can involve those who voluntarily chose to participate in it, however oftentimes involves persons who are forced to do so.” He also recalled the “rise in pedophilia, which affects both girls and boys in this area,” along with “the development of male prostitution, which is also in need of its own specific pastoral care.”
In order to face this problem, the Archbishop explained, there is a need not only for resources, but also for “collaboration among public and private groups, cooperation with the media in order to guarantee correct communication as to this issue, proposals and application of laws that protect women (especially minors), effective measures against the degrading portrayal of women in publicity advertisements, and the cooperation of the entire Christian community together with national and local authorities.”
In the third place are the children who live on the street, a problem that is especially common in Latin America, where the number reaches nearly 50 million. “For many year, the judicial system, the police, businesses, and society in general have projected the idea that many of these children are a threat to civilized society,” the Prelate said. He then offered words of encouragement for those who work with these children on the street, as it is a task that “can be very difficult at times, as it consumes time and energy, not to mention financial resources, as these children are in need of long periods of rehabilitation.” In fact, they will need time “in order to win their trust, especially if they have suffered abuse or maltreatment on the part of other adults.”
Lastly, there are the homeless, who “represent one of the many facets of poverty in the world.” Being homeless not only implies being without a house, but having “lost the possibility of living an authentically human life.” Thus, pastoral care for these persons cannot be reduced to mere sheltering, “but must involve offering them a place where they can be themselves in all their fullness and dignity, a place where they can build relationships and progress in every aspect of their existence, including spiritually speaking.”
Archbishop Marchetto concluded by explaining that the Church is called to “offer a response” to all these needs, in order to “truly be herself,” and carry out “a task of making all things new in Christ Jesus, finding in Him all the wealth of a rich human diversity that has been transformed into division and conflict, by sin” and being for this world “a sign of hope for a world that thirsts for justice, freedom, truth, solidarity, peace, and harmony.” (RG) (Agenzia Fides 21/10/2008)
