EUROPE/ITALY - Fr. Maccalli and his mission together with migrants: “The human person first because we are all brothers”

Modica (Agenzia Fides) - "To be there is to be in the middle of the ford of a challenge that challenges us in humanity first and foremost. And to those who shout out loud against migrants without knowing their stories, their faces and their names, I reply: 'the human person first because we are all brothers' ". This is what was expreesed by Father Pierluigi Maccalli, priest of the Society for African Missions, on his return after a period of 'rest', as he himself defined the months he spent in Sicily to "listen, see and touch a reality that challenges everyone".
The missionary, a guest in Modica of the inter-congregational missionary community created in 2016 by the will of the leaders of all the Italian female and male missionary communities that belong to the Conference of Italian Missionary Institutes (C.I.M.I.), spent time together with migrants to "be a presence of prayer and sharing of life". "The challenge of migration is one of the signs of the times of humanity on the move, in search of the future and peace, writes Fr. Maccalli. Not being able to return, for the moment to the shore of the African Sahel in Niger, I thought of visiting the shore of the Italian Sahel. I have lived in Africa for 23 years and have always been welcomed and hosted as one of them. Sicily was chosen as a place of landings and consolidated immigrant communities. The reality of migration is the subject of political debates and prejudices that often forget personal and community tragedies and do not facilitate the process of reception and integration. To act as a bridge of cultures is the vocation of us missionaries, not simply as cultural mediators but as people who have lived among peoples and shared with them the joys and sorrows, efforts and hopes of a new world that knows how to reconcile harmony of differences". (...) (AP) (Agenzia Fides, 28/5/2022)

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