Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bogota (Agenzia Fides) - The 2nd Continental Meeting on Migration and Refugees promoted by the Human Mobility section of CELAM issued a message and statement of conclusions and guidelines. Present for the meeting in Bogota held 30 May to 2 June Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral care of Migrants and Itinerant peoples as well as bishops, clergy and religious and lay people involved in this field of pastoral care. “Migration is a sign of our times. - the message reads -. The intensity of the phenomenon is of concern for political and economic world order and also the Church...It is necessary to recognise that the mobility of millions of people in this globalised world is a moment of grace, and an opportunity for the birth of a new world order inspired by the values of the Gospel, marked by love and solidarity”. The participants said the human person and human dignity must be recognised as the foundation of civilisation and development, a task to which all our called, beginning with the Church. The participants called on national authorities to "listen to the voice of those excluded from society and to recognises every human person...as a member of world society with the right to occupy a worthy place and to contribute with his presence and work to the common good”. They called on those responsible for economy to "recognise that a major cause of migration is growing economic inequality” and to build the path “for a new economic order to include and promote the wellbeing of every person on the planet ”. They called on societies to welcome emigrants and “break down walls of prejudice”, to see one another as “gifts of God” in view of respectful cultural enrichment.
Guidelines and proposals for the next three years included suggestions for national commissions for migration pastoral: promote programmes of pastoral accompaniment for family members of emigrants in cooperation with other pastoral sectors and urge governments to consider family unification as a right for migrant families; intensify work of information and all round care for emigrants; increase awareness among Church authorities, pastoral workers, Church Movements and society in general to adopt the spirit of welcome and solidarity proper to the Gospel; intensify contact between Bishops’ Conference with regard to refugees and displaced person keeping in mind ecumenical and inter-religious aspects; in Colombia support peace initiatives; form pastoral workers and inform society about human trafficking and its consequences; promote and co-ordinate efforts to prevent human trafficking and to provide care for the victims; always act in the light of moral values in processes stemming from migration. “It is part of the Church’s mission - the document concludes - to offer criteria of solidarity, indicating human and Christian values which broaden horizons of solutions to concrete problems which migration poses in our day". (RG) (Agenzia Fides 9/6/2006; righe 38, parole 532)
