Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bangkok (Fides Service) - “The title of our Congress - “Tourism at the service of the meeting of Peoples.” - was chosen to indicate the central point of the proclamation of the Gospel” Cardinal Stephen Fumio Hamao said in his opening address at the 6th International Congress on Pastoral of Tourism being held 5-8 July in Thailand at the Pastoral Training Center" in Bangkok. “An “encounter” is in fact the focal point of the proclamation of the Gospel of the Good News which has always resounded in the heart of history. It is an invitation, a novelty, a call to communion with God and God wants this invitation to reach every man and women which the Church celebrates and announces day after day” said the Japanese born Cardinal who is President of the Pontifical Council for Pastorale for Migrants and Itinerant Peoples. Some 110 participants from 35 different countries are attending this major church event.
“Tourism’s contribution to the economic and social development of countries is unquestionable - the Cardinal said -. The fact that it can also help, and is already doing so, to improve understanding among peoples is, I dare to say, is obvious. However undoubtedly also clear are the difficulties on this journey as well as the mistakes made. This is why, tourism which is part of the human reality, demands constant evangelisation on the part of the Church, it needs, that is, the saving grace of God.”
Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Secretary of the same Pontifical Council spoke of the most significant events in pastoral of tourism since the last International Congress held at Ephesus in 1998 and then said: “The theme of the Congress speaks of a meeting. This is meeting is something which the world today feels as a necessity and which it lives sometimes as an urgent challenge with the possibility, unfortunately, also of clashes. Today people often sense with anguish that community bonds dissolve and reasons for solitude are multiplied.” Since tourism brings people together it is the Church’s duty to employ all the pastoral means to encourage it. Among the most urgent aspects the Archbishop mentioned the study of pastoral of tourism which be included in programmes in academic centres, giving special attention to two points in particular: social tourism and the struggle to stop sexual abuse connected with tourism.
“Sexual tourism is a shameful and barbarous scourge and only almost universal hypocrisy prevents us from measuring all its devastating effects in their profundity” said Archbishop Marchetto. Mentioning praiseworthy initiatives to counter the phenomenon he asked: “to what point does public opinion accept them with conviction and not only a simply a way to calm consciences?”. “Our pastoral attention to the victims of economic exploitation for sexual reasons, which must be total and pressing, must go further, even further than comprehension of the circumstances of poverty which favour it and which we must make every effort to eliminate ” the Archbishop said. “We should give more determined pastoral attention to tourists in their countries of origin to understand what pushes them to behave in this way and the help them realise the gravity of their crime and try to convince them with all the means at our disposal to renounce their intentions and change their behaviour. In the countries of origin of these tourists, it will undoubtedly help to take legal measures against this sin which is also social.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 7/7/2004; Righe 40 - Parole 557)
