Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

People on the Move - N° 88-89, April - December 2002

First International Conference on Migration and Theology: 
Migration and Religious Experience 
in the Context of Globalization^*

H. E. Archbishop Stephen Fumio HAMAO
President of the Pontifical Council 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to thank the organizers of this Theological Conference for the invitation to say a few words on the “Pastoral Care of Migrants in the Context of Globalization”. Indeed, the theme touches the heart of the Pontifical Council's mission in our present historical context.

We will hear much about globalization in this conference. I only wish to reflect on it from a standpoint of Church and migration. On the part of the Church, the concept of "globalization", in a certain sense, goes back a long way. Jesus Christ definitely had a global vision in mind when he prayed the Father that “ they may all be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so that they may be one in us ( Jn 17,21). It was the same when he commanded his disciples to go and “make disciples of all nations Â… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). 

Since then the community of those who believe in Him has developed what today we would call a network, based not on the free flow of goods, services, and capital but on the free flow of GodÂ’s grace in unity with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This "network" has survived and spread over the last 2000 years despite persecutions and set-backs.

By this common faith in the Trinity and its concrete expressions, Christians spread all over the world are united with their pastors, bishops and the Holy Father, and with one another. We can say that this is the reality which Vatican Council II calls "communion". The strength of this network does not lie in the expanding markets or in homogenizing cultures but in the action of the Holy Spirit. Its program is not about the next corporate take-over or maximizing profit at the expense of migrant labor but about the globalization of solidarity without marginalization and the civilization of love in Christ.

The effects of nowadays' economic and cultural globalization on the world of human mobility are well known among pastoral agents. Unfortunately the prosperity it has promised is still to be experienced in the world of migration. Globalization, it seems, is not living up to its necessary task of being at the service of the human person and the common good. In this situation, which often seems to be out of control, the Church endeavors to be present, as leaven, as a mustard seed, as a sign that the Kingdom of God is in our midst. Even more, it is the promise of transformation in Christ who, by his death and resurrection, redeemed the human race and Creation itself. 

The Church's presence in the world of human mobility is, of course, primarily “pastoral,” a continuation of the mission of Jesus the Good Pastor, that of forming the people of God, the pilgrim Church , moving slowly and painfully, but steadfastly, towards the fullness of the Kingdom. It is a presence in the midst of realities where the “arms of the Spirit” can seem impotent in the face of forces that are impressive and threatening. Yet these make it faithful to the task of confirming the pilgrim community in their faith by sustaining migrant Christians as individuals or groups and keeping them in loving communion with its source, the Risen Lord.

An expression of this pastoral presence is to scrutinize the signs of the times in the Spirit, in the light coming from the Gospel, and speak out in the defense of the dignity of migrants and their families, whether their documents are in order or not, to point out the policies and laws that threaten the people on the move, and work for a change in the structures that keep globalization from serving the common good and being a globalization of solidarity, rendering it advantageous only for a few, and certainly not for the majority of migrants.

However important and essential this ministry of advocacy and prophetic denouncement is, it is only one aspect of pastoral care. Like any pastoral action and program, it needs to be rooted in Christ, in unity and cooperation with the pastors of the Church, and sustained by prayerful contact with the Lord.

The pastoral task of building up the community of migrants in Christ also includes forming a community of living witnesses of the Gospel. And a witnessing community is necessarily an evangelizing community through its presence, sharing and solidarity (cf. EN 21). Through this wordless witness, Christian migrants and migrant communities can stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of those who see how they live and how they love one another, questions that lead to Christ. Migrants are called to make their contribution to their host country by offering them a fresh experience of the Good News of Jesus.

To be able to carry out this mission, pastoral agents must first of all incarnate the gospel of love themselves, in their relationship with the bishop, to whom is entrusted the main responsibility of pastoral care in his diocese, among themselves and with migrants. Migrants themselves can be, must be, pastoral agents among their fellow migrants.

In our age of globalization, it is no longer sufficient for each diocese or episcopal conference to organize its pastoral action alone. This ministry is in a certain sense “without borders” – global. This perspective in reading and addressing the migration phenomenon is necessary. More and more, cooperation between the migrants’ Churches of origin and destination is often realized in sending priests or other pastoral workers to accompany migrant groups. There is more. Collaboration between episcopal conferences in the same region is also being improved. We have an example of this very close at hand in the joint pastoral letter on migration being composed by the Episcopal Commissions for Migration of the US and Mexican Bishops Conferences.

In the humanitarian area, there is on-going collaboration between local Church structures and other international institutions and Catholic organizations involved in migration and refugee programs. There is also an attempt to collaborate with other Christians and followers of other religions, and with every person of goodwill including those who may not have a religious belief. 

The Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People wishes to encourage all efforts to make the Kingdom of God felt among all people on the move. We will thus follow with great interest the dynamics of this Conference and accompany it with our prayer.