Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the approval and publication of the Instruction “Erga migrantes caritas Christi” (The love of Christ towards migrants), the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People has issued the following statement.
“The love of Christ towards migrants urges us (cf. 2 Co 5:14)to look afresh at their problems, which are to be met with today all over the world. In fact nearly all countries are now faced with the eruption of the migration phenomenon in one aspect or another; it affects their social, economic, political and religious life and is becoming more and more a permanent structural phenomenon.” (“Erga migrantes caritas Christi,” 1).
These words are the opening words of the Instruction “Erga migrantes caritas Christi,” which was approved by Pope John Paul II on May 1, 2004, Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, and published by the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People the following May 3. The document was an attempt to “update the pastoral care of migration, thirty-five years after the publication of Pope Paul VI’s Motu Proprio Pastoralis migratorum cura and the Congregation for Bishops’ related Instruction De pastorali migratorum cura” (EMCC, Introduction).
Five years after its promulgation, our Pontifical Council has seen it right to recall this event with a World Congress for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, the six to be held, on the specific theme: “A Pastoral Response to a Migratory Phenomenon in the Era of Globalization (Five Years After 'Erga migrantes caritas Christi').” It will take place at the Vatican, this coming November 9-12.
Also scheduled to attend are representatives from the Bishops' Commissions for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People from many countries on various continents, so that the reflections and the drafting of future projects can be an authentic expression of those who are working in this area in whatever part of the earth they come from. There will also be experts in the matter present, in addition to delegates from religious congregations, Church movements, and lay associations, in light of the challenge that these situations present. There will also be an ecumenical taste to the event, with the presence of members of other Christian Churches, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the Anglican Church, and the World Lutheran Federation.
During the Congress, there will be various questions addressed in reference to the migration phenomenon, both internationally and nationally, and therefore globalization, urbanization, cooperation between the Church and migrants and refugees, their acceptance and integration, ecumenical, interreligious, and intercultural dialogue, cooperations between Churches and Religions, as well as among Church and civil institutions for migrants and, consequently, of the local people. Special attention will be given to the situations lived by these people in shelters and in jails.
Among the speakers are: Cardinals Jean-Baptiste Pam Minh Mân of Vietnam, John Njue of Kenya, and Odilo Pedro Scherer of Brazil, and Prof. Stefano Zamagni of the Department of Economic Studies of the University of Bologna. The high point of the Congress will be an audience with Pope Benedict XVI who, on the occasion of the last Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People on May 15 of last year, said: “ It escapes no one that in today's globalized world human mobility represents an important frontier for the new evangelization. I encourage you, therefore, to persevere in your pastoral task with renewed zeal while, for my part, I assure you of my spiritual closeness.”
For more information on the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, please see our recent “Fides Dossier” of April 25, 2009. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 4/5/2009)
