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 Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

People on the Move

N° 96, December 2004

 

“INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

 IN THE WORLD OF MIGRANTS AND 

ITINERANTS, WITH FUTURE PROSPECTS"

  

Bishop Nicholas DIMARZIO

Bishop of Brooklyn

 

I thank the Pontifical Council for this opportunity to present some thoughts on the topic on Intercultural Dialogue in the World of Migrants and Itinerant People with Future Prospects.  The topic is not only intriguing, but also very timely. The prospects of intercultural dialogue in the world of migrants is ever present and becomes more and more an urgent concern of an increasingly globalized world. 

What is Culture?

I must begin, however, by defining culture and how it relates to migration and then what, indeed, is meant by intercultural dialogue. Culture has many definitions. If we attempt a sociological definition, perhaps we could use the definition given by the late Father Joseph Fitzpatrick, SJ, an eminent sociologist, whom I call the grandfather of understanding culture, faith and migration, and the author of an historic book entitled, One Church Many Cultures: The Challenge of Diversity. Generally, Father Fitzpatrick defined culture as essentially “myself.” It is the sum total of the ways of believing, thinking, feeling, behaving and interacting which constitutes my way of life. It is a pattern of expected behavior, the sum total of the meanings that things have for a person in one culture or another. It permeates my whole being. It is that aspect of my existence in which I respond with deep emotion to what I consider sacred, and which gives me a sense of security in the rituals by which I show my respect for God. Clearly, even from this definition given from a sociological point of view, we see the immediate connection between the person and faith. 

Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, in his historic speech at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in June of 1980, took the opportunity to speak on the future of mankind and its dependence on culture. He said, “It is through culture that man lives a truly human life. Human life is also culture in the sense that it is by culture that man is distinguished and differentiated from everything else that exists in the visible world; man cannot do without culture.”1

The Holy Father gave much thought to the philosophical basis of culture before he assumed the Pontificate. In his early philosophical works, he helps us to understand the true meaning of culture. The then Cardinal Wojtyla, in an essay entitled The Problem of the Constitution of Culture Through Human Praxis, tells us, “…the constitution of culture through human praxis arises within the context of the controversy as well, (the controversy is the humanum). They are intimately linked to an understanding of the human being as a person: a self-determining subject. Culture develops principally within this dimension, the dimension of self-determining subjects. Culture is basically oriented not so much toward the creation of human products, but as toward the creation of the human self, which then radiates into the world of products.”2

 Culture is about the perfection of the human person. It is the cultivation of the human person. Later, we will explain the highest form of culture, which is not music, song or art, but rather the act of faith which is the gift of self par excellance. It is the act in which a person can become truly themselves, the supreme act of culture. As we will see, the person is cultivated as person, precisely by faith.

 Speaking in 1994 to the Pontifical Council of Culture, our Holy Father said in quoting an earlier statement, “A faith that does not become culture is a faith not fully accepted, not fully thought out, not faithfully lived.”3 Faith and culture, obviously, are intimately connected. Certainly, in our discussions on intercultural dialogue we must maintain that intimate connection in our frame of reference.

Perhaps the best backdrop for understanding the Church’s modern interpretation of culture must be the document Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council. In the second chapter of this document, we hear about the proper development of culture. “The word culture in its general sense indicates everything whereby man develops and perfects his bodily and spiritual qualities. He strives by his knowledge and labor to bring the world itself under his control. He renders social life more human, both in family and civic community, through improvement of customs and institutions. Throughout the course of time, he expresses, communicates and conserves in his works great spiritual experiences and desires, that they may be of advantage for the progress of many, even to the whole human family.”4 The sense of enthusiasm which was conveyed by The Church in the Modern World has much to do with the present understanding of culture as intimate to the life of the human person.

Culture, Faith and Migration

It is almost impossible to speak about the phenomenon of migration without contemporaneously addressing oneself to the issue of culture. Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has devoted a significant amount of his teaching to the issue of culture. In particular, there are many ways that this relates to his treatment of the migration issue. An in-depth understanding of the teaching of our Holy Father on culture can be found in the doctoral dissertation of His Eminence, Francis Cardinal George entitled, Inculturation in Ecclesial Communion: Culture and Church in the Teaching of John Paul II.             

I wish to begin with a quote from his dissertation which makes the link between culture and migration clearer. Cardinal George says, “A person's right to freedom and identity is ontologically basic because the self-possession revealed in action is irreducible. Without self-possession, the person is less than human; his or her truth and dignity are destroyed at the root, even if a superficial array of choices remains open.”5 There is nothing more basic to human identity than culture itself. The freedom to self determine, which is the basis for all human rights, ensures that the human person has not only a right to create his own culture, such as language, dress, song, dance and other superficial or non-essential elements, but also the cultivation of the subjectivity, that is the self as asserted in Gaudium et Spes, 24, “The person becomes self by a praxis of self giving.”6 This is the real heart of culture. 

The Pope's earlier phenomenological analysis of culture, consistent with his understanding of the human person, gives us a basis upon which we can defend the inalienable right to culture that is part of every human person's heritage. The migrant himself is a person who moves from one culture to another in most instances. Even internal migrants change geography and culture in moving from one part of their own country to another. But the unity of the human person is expressed in culture which is not destroyed by diversity. Just as the Trinity is able to maintain unity and diversity, so, too, cultures can maintain an overall unity even within areas that might be open to conflict. 

In the annual Migration Day Message of 2002, the Holy Father states, “On the day of Pentecost it was the Spirit of Truth who completed the divine design of the unity of mankind in the diversity of cultures and religions.”7 The theme of the overall message was inter-religious dialogue which necessarily involves cultural differences. Migrants bring the question of cultural identity to the world's attention. They are the prime movers in the world of diversity, since they carry that diversity with them. They challenge the world to be open.

 Pope John Paul II insisted before the UN in 1995 that a nation is a living subjectivity that perdures through history with an identity that is dynamized by culture. Concretely, the history of Poland is such an identity that survived a millennium often without being a state of autonomous government or political boundaries. However, it survived as a living entity thanks to the faith of its people in Christ. 8 He says, “A presupposition of a nation’s rights is certainly its right to exist: therefore no one – neither a State nor another nation, nor an international organization – is ever justified in asserting that an individual nation is not worthy of existence. Its right to exist naturally implies that every nation also enjoys the right to its own language and culture, through which a people expresses and promotes that which I would call its fundamental spiritual 'sovereignty.’ History shows that in extreme circumstances (such as those which occurred in the land where I was born) it is precisely its culture that enables a nation to survive the loss of political and economic independence.”9 What applies to nations as cultural entities appliesmutatis mutandis to migrating peoples. The self-giving of the migrating people to the host culture ad quam will involve an openness and adaptation to that culture without permitting itself to be absorbed and destroyed by its introduction into it, precisely on the basis of this “spiritual ‘sovereignty’”.

Cardinal George, in describing the relationship between culture and faith says “Faith is the act of this self-giving.” Cardinal George underscores this by insisting that, “If culture is also to be related to faith, believers need a philosophical anthropology which restores to human persons their integrity in such a way that they remain certain of their own identity and yet always open to goals which transcend their own particular experience.”10

Most migrants in the process of migration undergo an identity crisis, a challenge to their own identity, a challenge to take on a new culture, while at the same time they must defend their innate culture lest they loose something of who they are. 

In its document Towards “a” Pastoral Approach to Culture, the Pontifical Council for Culture makes an interesting excursion into the field of migration. The Council states, “In sacred Scripture, the Word of God which constitutes the original inculturation of the faith in the God of Abraham, the God of Jesus Christ, ‘The words of God expressed and the words of men, are in every way like human language.’”11 

The Council goes on to describe the call of Abraham which is so significant. Abraham was asked to leave his country, his family and his father’s house that he might be the father of many nations. The very history of the people of God begins with an adherence to faith which was also a cultural split and which culminated in another detachment, the Pascal Mystery, the death of Jesus Christ, in which He was lifted from the earth and at the same time became the focal point of all history. The cultural break which began in Abraham’s call shows what can happen when a person makes a total gift of self. Abraham was rooted in a pagan culture. Through faith, he is able to break with that culture, destroy the idols of the past which were a product of that culture, and assert himself as a totally new person. In order to accomplish this, Abraham had to migrate. How important it is to see that the action of migration contains within itself the potential for cultural change and cultural dialogue.

The Holy Father’s 1991 Migration Day message addresses this fact most directly. He says, "Migration always has two aspects, diversity and universality. The former comes from the meeting between diverse individuals and groups of people and involves inevitable tension, latent rejection and open polemics. The later is constituted by the harmonious meeting of diverse social subjects who discover themselves in the patrimony that is common to every human being formed as it is by the values of humanity and fraternity. There is a mutual enrichment when diverse cultures come into contact."12 The message goes on to contrast the biblical images of the Tower of Babel and the Pentecost event. The ethnic and linguistic diversity and the issue of language and culture, as seen in this context, teach that culture is at the very root of human existence. What Babel had destroyed, the Holy Father has said, “On Pentecost then the legitimacy and ethnic and cultural pluralism was restored…Every person must have his dignity recognized and his cultural identity respected. This principle finds its individual and specific application in the area of migration.”13

The defense of cultural pluralism, especially in regard to migrant peoples, is very consistent with the Holy Father's understanding of the human person. To strip a person of his or her culture, to reduce a person to an object removes the possibility that a person can truly be a subject and agent of his or her own self-determination and self-development. This is the deepest meaning of freedom: to have the personal space and autonomy to decide for themselves how they are to respond to the calling to be gift (and therefore, person). The freedom to self cultivate is the deepest meaning and possibility of culture.

Migrants as humans, must be able to have the freedom to be themselves and createtheir own culture. If we were to apply this to the situation of migrants, a migrant person also cannot do without culture. He or she often straddles two cultures and not only must maintain his or her own, but also acquire all that a new culture entails: language, customs, and all the accidentals but also the ability to gift himself in faith. Migrants become the purveyors of diversity which contributes to the ultimate unity of the human family. There can be no unity without diversity, for then what is there to unify?

Many times the conflict of cultures results in racism known in the relationship to migrants, as xenophobia or the fear of strangers. In the 1984 Annual Migration Day message, issued by His Eminence, Agostino Cardinal Casaroli, the unbiblical term of xenophobia is translated into the newly coined word of philoxemia. Philoxemia is a sense of open and cordial hospitality of which St. Paul speaks in the Letter to the Romans, 12:13, “If anyone of the Saints is in need, you must share with them, you must make hospitality your special care.” 

The notion of hospitality as affirmation of the person is most profound. Without it, the person is not able to be a self, most literally, an “I.” Cardinal Josef Ratzinger notes succinctly, “But how does one go about affirming, assenting to, one’s I? The answer may perhaps be unexpected: We cannot do so by our own efforts alone. Of ourselves, we cannot come to terms with ourselves. Our I becomes acceptable to us only if it has first become acceptable to another I. We can love ourselves only if we have first been loved by someone else… Man is that strange creature that needs not just physical birth but also appreciation if he is to subsist. This is the root of the phenomenon known as hospitalism.”14

The statement goes on to say that the same concept is expressed in Peter 4:9 in a most lively and practical statement, “Welcome each other into your houses without grumbling,” In the letter to the Hebrews 13:2, it is underlined that a mysterious design may be hidden in this brotherly behavior, “And remember always to welcome strangers, for by doing this some people have entertained angels without knowing it.” 

Besides Cardinal George, the ex officio interpreter of the mind of John Paul II is Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, as already cited. In an address at Hong Kong in 1993 to the presidents of the Asian Bishops Conference, the Cardinal addressed the specific issue of  “Christ, Faith and the Challenge of Cultures.” The issue of inculturation is closely related to the world of migrants and especially related to the understanding of the Church's missionology. It challenges us to understand, first what culture is and how the movement from one culture to another presents great challenges. Cardinal Ratzinger says that from the biblical perspective Israel's faith is based on the call of Abraham which in itself, in my interpretation, is a migration event.  

Abraham was called to leave his country and to find not only a new land, but also a new religion and a new culture. In addition, Cardinal Ratzinger says that a cultural break is very necessary, and goes on to say “Faith itself is culture. There is no such thing as naked faith or mere religion. Simply stated, insofar as faith tells man who he is and how he should begin being human, faith creates culture; faith is itself culture. Faith’s word is not an abstraction; it is one which has matured through a long history and through intercultural mingling in which it formed an entire structure of life, the interaction of man with himself, his neighbor, the world and God. This means too that faith is its own subject, a living and cultural community which we call the people of God.”15 

The question is then asked: “Does then faith stand as one culture among others such that one would have to choose whether to belong to this people as a cultural community or to another? No.” And the reason for this is: Christian faith, as the self-gift of the human person, is the supreme cultural act. It is the supreme act of anthropology. It activates man to be person, and as such is the mother of all cultures. All cultures grow, develop and become inter-cultural because of her. All cultures thrive because as activating the subject, faith competes with nothing that is objectively achieved. Hence, “even as a Christian one remains a Frenchman, a German, an American, an Indian, etc.”16

A new beginning and a new healing is necessary as the basis of all religious faith. A new center calls a person to a different understanding of God. For example, Christ's cross was a break. It was a type of expulsion, an alienation from the earth. It was a new center that pulled and drew all things to Himself, as the Scripture tells us. In his talk, he describes how one cannot be a Christian without a certain exodus, a break from one's previous life in all aspects. This applies very much to the migrant who is called to break from his previous culture to find a new culture. 

Hence, inhis talk, Cardinal Ratzinger envisioned a new phrase for inculturation, “For this reason, we should no longer speak of inculturation but of the meeting of cultures of ‘interculturality’, to coin a new phrase. For inculturation presumes that a faith stripped of culture is transplanted into a religiously indifferent culture whereby two subjects, formally unknown to each other, meet and fuse. But such a notion is first of all artificial and unrealistic…Only if all cultures are potentially universal and open to each other (and Christian faith makes them so) can interculturality lead to flourishing new forms.”17

As you see, the Holy Father’s anthropology in the hands of these two Cardinals becomes the bed-rock of the intertwining of faith and culture, and offers the intellectual resources for a global world-culture integrated by autonomous sub-cultures. Those who know the thought and mind of the Holy Father well, as do these two eminent cardinals, are able to explain the Holy Father's Christian anthropology, which has so much to say about culture and faith. 

Having taken this brief excursion into the relationship between culture, faith and migration, it is now incumbent that the implicit possibilities of intercultural dialogue be explained.

Intercultural Dialogue: Future Prospects

Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, in the World Day of Peace 2001 message, addressed the issue of dialogue between cultures which fosters a civilization of love and peace. The Holy Father said, “In any event, a person necessarily lives within a specific culture.” He states, “Dialogue between cultures….emerges as an intrinsic demand of human nature itself, as well as culture.”18 However, the Holy Father expresses his apprehension when he says, “Even now, sad to say, in different parts of the world we are witnessing with growing alarm the aggressive claims of some cultures against others. In the long run, this situation can end in disastrous tensions and conflicts. At the very least it can make more difficult the situation of those ethnic and cultural minorities living in a majority culture context which is different from their own and prone to hostile and racist ways of thinking and acting.”19

Migrants, as stated already, carry within themselves diversity and become the special ambassadors of intercultural dialogue, since they bring with them their own culture which necessarily meets another culture in the process of migration. 

How can we define a culture of dialogue? At the press conference announcing the Italian National Day of Migration in 2002, Domenico Rosati states, “Il dialogo e il metodo necessario per misurare le disponibilita reciproche e per cimentarsi nella sintesi della costruzione della civitas humana o del bene commune universale”. “Dialogue is the method necessary to measure the reciprocal openness and the willingness to put oneself to the test in the process of constructing a human civilization for the universal common good.”20

Dialogue is a necessary component in any effort of exchange. To dialogue is not merely an exercise of cognition. It is a giving of the entire self to another. As such it is grounded in prayer and radiates from it. John Paul says: 

“The capacity for ‘dialogue’ is rooted in the nature of the person and his dignity. As seen by philosophy, this approach is linked to the Christian truth concerning man as expressed by the Council: man is in fact ‘the only creature on earth which God willed for itself;’ thus he cannot ‘fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.’ Dialogue is an indispensable step along the path toward human self-realization, the self-realization both of each individual and of every human community. Although the concept of ‘dialogue’ might appear to give priority to the cognitive dimension (dia-logos), all dialogue implies a global, existential dimension. It involves the human subject in his or her entirety; dialogue between communities involves in a particular way the subjectivity of each.” And then again: “Dialogue is not simply an exchange of ideas. In some way it is always an ‘exchange of gifts.’”21

The difficulties and barriers are substantial. The inequalities that exist, especially for migrants coming to a new culture, tend to force the migrant to turn in upon himself or to ghettoize his existence, making the possibility of dialogue very difficult. It is not always the migrant himself, however, who curtails dialogue, but rather the society who receives him in its own attitudes towards immigrant integration. Professor Stefano Zamagni, current President of the ICMC, the International Catholic Migration Commission, in an insightful and scholarly article which appeared in Servizio Migranti No. 2, 2001, the publication of the Migration Foundation of the Italian Episcopal, clearly states the difficulties. The article, entitled “Migration Multiculturalism and the Politics of Identity,” outlines the various possible societal attitudes towards multiculturalism which define the possibility of dialogue. There are societies where multiculturalism is the rule. Many times, however, multicultural societies are formed by groups living in isolation between whom little dialogue takes place. There are other intercultural societies where there are structural systems of discrimination which also preclude healthy dialogue. There are still other societies which might be called “a pluralistic multicultural ambience” where immigrants, in order to be integrated into a society, shed some of their culture and take on the identity of the host society. There is another possible model best known as “a liberal communitarian model” which asserts the irreconcilable situation of multiculturalism with liberal democracy. Those in favor of the communitarian approach, although its name seems harmless, results in seeing cultural diversity as feeding isolation and not leading to intercultural dialogue. 

As Professor Zamagni reports, however, there is perhaps a model of intercultural integration which best fits our Catholic social doctrine of migration. This model contains several elements which allows and facilitates intercultural dialogue. First, the primacy of the person over the state and the community must be asserted. The identity of the person and migrant are critical. It is not cultures that dialogue but rather persons that dialogue. It is the migrant, as a person, who is called to make a gift of self in the cultural break that he experiences in migration who must confront and dialogue with another culture. Secondly, there must be a characteristic freedom which allows the self-realization of the migrant as a person. There also should be some neutrality, yet not indifference to religious and cultural differences. Then integration and interaction, which are human values that square with the universal rights of humans, can be a basis of dialogue. 

In this context, the prospects for dialogue are much greater than in societies where these elements do not exist. We would be hard pressed, however, to identify countries where these theories of multiculturalism exist in the abstract. I believe, in fact, that every society today, especially in light of the phenomena of globalization and interchange, contains elements of all of these theoretical models of multiculturalism which are the basis of dialogue. 

The bishops of the United States, in their pastoral letter Welcoming the Stranger Among Us; Unity In Diversity, spoke to the issue of intercultural communication.

 Intercultural communication - sustained efforts, carried out by people of diverse cultures, to appreciate their differences, work out conflicts, and build on commonalities - will thus be an important component of coming to know and respect the diverse cultures that make up today’s Church. The dominant culture in the United States stresses the individual and his or her feelings and decisions. In less individualistic cultures, individuals may feel hesitant to express their own opinions openly, even in a friendly setting, without reinforcement from the group. Among immigrants of the same group, too, divisions along lines of social class or educational background can erect barriers to understanding, with some members adapting to the procedures and practices of parish life more readily than others. Often, culturally sensitive intermediaries are needed to facilitate exchanges, mediate conflicts, and promote genuine participation by all.

Integration will be facilitated when all parties maintain an open spirit. Integration cannot be forced, and those who host newcomers must be especially aware of the vulnerabilities of immigrants and the impulse many immigrants feel to withdraw from interaction. Pastors and lay leaders who are aware of these dynamics of adaptation and communication among cultures will lead the way in facilitating the full, equal incorporation of all members of the community into the life of the Church.22

The experience of the Church in the United States has been substantial in this area. Almost daily, conflicts of culture and cultural dialogue happen simultaneously. As I was preparing this talk, I mentioned to one of my priests that I was asked to give a talk at the Pontifical Council on the subject of intercultural dialogue. He immediately made the concrete example, “Oh yes, you mean what happens between the Columbians and Ecuadorians in my parish as they try to understand each other and work together as one community.” Cultural differences are neither minor issues or major obstacles. They are what we make them to be.

As we peer into the future regarding the future prospects of intercultural dialogue, the phenomena of globalization must be taken into account. Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, perhaps has made an interesting comment on this phenomena in speaking to the members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in April of 2001 said, “Globalization, a priori, is neither good nor bad. It will be that which persons make of it.”23 How true that statement is, as globalization enhances the possibilities of migration can also be a phenomena that fosters intercultural dialogue and understanding. 

The Holy Father recently said: “Globalization must become more than simply another name for the absolute relativization of values and the homogenization of lifestyles and cultures. For this to happen ... we are challenged to bear witness to the liberating and transforming power of Christian truth, which inspires us to place our talents, our intellectual resources, our persuasive abilities, our experiences and our skills at the service of God, our neighbor and the common good of the human family.”24 That “Christian truth,” of course, is a Person, the Person of Jesus Christ, Who is the measure of every person as the total gift of Self.

The need for intercultural dialogue cannot be correctly understood without recognizing the impact of globalization and multiculturalism on the world and on the Church.

Until now, we have understood our multicultural policies and practices as giving us the ability of focusing upon minimizing conflict between cultural groups and trying to provide basic pastoral services. This is important because through this the Church provides some semblance of unity in the midst of all the variety which exists among the faithful. Parishes have become the sites of parallel communities which must deal with conflicts between and within cultural groups as they adjust to a changed environment and their children come of age.

This points to the fact that not only are different skills needed, but also needed are changes in attitude and a new kind of spirituality. These cultural groups within a diocese or parish are not static entities. They continue to change as they interact with one another and with the larger environment around them. Some suggest that a new paradigm for action must change from multicultural thinking to pluricultural thinking and planning.

Pastoral leaders will have to help people understand what is going on around them. Above all, it is imperative that in the friction and rub of interfacing cultures that are irreducibly different, that there is one common truth, the person as a subject, who is everywhere dignified, free, respected and never reducible to an object of use or exploitation.

John Paul II, in his Migration Day Message 2002, said “... the parish represents the space in which a true pedagogy of meeting with people of various religious convictions and cultures can be realized. In its various expressions, the parish community can become a training ground of hospitality, a place where an exchange of experiences and gifts takes place. This cannot but foster a tranquil life together, preventing the risk of tension with immigrants who bring other religious beliefs with themselves.”25

Parishes will have to become “safe spaces” where issues of identity, culture, belonging and trust can be worked out. The parish and the Church should become that “middle space” between the global and the local where people can connect safely with the world around them.

A new and special spirituality might need to be developed to sustain those who are experiencing the difficulties which personal identity and cultural pluralism impose on people.

The Second Vatican Council, in the historic document Gaudium et Spes, already quoted, however, did foresee the difficulties not realizing how prophetic it would be regarding the increased pace of intercultural exchange fostered by globalization. The Council, instead of answering this question, posed other questions such as:

“What is to be done to prevent the increased exchanges between cultures, which should lead to a true and fruitful dialogue between groups and nations, from disturbing the life of communities, from destroying the wisdom received from ancestors, or from placing in danger the character proper to each people?

How is the dynamism and expansion of a new culture to be fostered without losing a living fidelity to the heritage of tradition?

What can be done to make all men partakers of cultural values in the world, when the human culture of those who are more competent is constantly becoming more refined and more complex?

How is the autonomy which culture claims for itself to be recognized as legitimate without generating a notion of humanism which is merely terrestrial, and even contrary to religion itself?”26

The Pontifical Council of Culture, charged with understanding the intersection of faith and culture, in its historic document, A Pastoral Approach To Culture, reminds us of the particular importance for evangelization of inculturation and intercultural dialogue. These means of understanding, however, must always be seen in the light of great mysteries of faith and in particular the Pentecost event. The Council says, “The nations gathered in the Upper Room on Pentecost did not hear in their respective tongues a discourse about their own human cultures, but they were amazed to hear each in their own tongue the Apostles proclaim the marvels of God.”27 And as the Holy Father tells us in Fides et Ratio: “While it demands of all of who hear it the adherence of faith, the proclamation of the Gospel in different cultures that allows people to preserve their own identity … to foster whatever is implicit in them to the point where it will be fully explicit in the light of truth.”28            

The Council speaks of galloping globalization and cultural conflicts which in some countries force millions of people to leave behind their home and culture to find themselves in socially rootless, politically powerless, economically marginalized and in culturally isolated situations. 

But what are the future prospects and possibilities for intercultural dialogue to take place? The experience of Church is found most properly at the local level. We speak of the local Church, the diocese. The epitome of the local Church, however, is the parish. It is in the parish where communities of faith and individuals are able to dialogue with one another. It is in the parish where cultural conflicts incur and where they can be negotiated. It is in the parish where dialogue is most possible. The parish, as Christifideles Laici tells us, is “the Church placed in the neighborhoods of humanity.” 29

“As diversified communities, parishes are in an excellent position to respond to new cultural demands by implementing a pastoral approach to culture based on listening, dialogue and support thanks to priests and parishioners who are well prepared in matters of religion and culture.” 30

Many dioceses also maintain cultural institutions. They could be another focal point where intercultural dialogue can be fostered. The heart of the Church is found in its educational mission and a fruitful encounter between cultures can be found in the institutions of higher education and many other schools which in fact are by definition places of cultural learning and dialogue. Certain special centers of theological formation can also be important venues for dialogue. Catholic cultural centers specifically established to foster intercultural dialogue also can be fruitful places of developing intercultural sensitivity. 

Perhaps most importantly the media, in this age of globalization, provides a locus for dialogue. The Internet and the proliferating personal web sites have become a massive and intensive sub-culture of thought and comment. If we are to foster dialogue among migrant groups, influencing the media with the proper information regarding cultural interchange, certainly will be very necessary.

It might be said in general that the best possibility for intercultural dialogue lies in the actualization of the New Evangelization in the Church, especially in regards to migrant ministry. The New Evangelization, if properly understood, contains within it all of the elements necessary to foster intercultural dialogue. The New Evangelization  as the personal experience of the Person of Christ and the recognition of His face is in itself dialogical in regards to culture, ecumenism, inter-religious and other types of exchange. The inculturation of the faith fostered by the New Evangelization provides perhaps the greatest prospect for future intercultural dialogue among migrants and with and between migrants and the majority cultures. 

Hopefully, this presentation will help to formulate some future recommendations for the Council to foster intercultural dialogue in the field of migration. 


1 John Paul II, address at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France, June 1980.
2 The Problem of the Constitution of Culture Through Human Praxis, Karol Cardinal Wojytla in Person and Community, Selected Essays, Peter Long Publishers, New York P. 265.
3 John Paul II, address to Pontifical Council of Culture, April 13, 1994, Par. 1.
4 Vatican II, Gadium et Spes, no. 24.
5 Francis E. George, OMI, Inculturation in Ecclesial Communion: Culture and Church in the Teaching of John Paul II, Urbaniana University Press, Rome, 1990.
6 Vatican II, Gadium et Spes, no. 24.
7 John Paul II, Migration Day Message, 2002.
8 Rocco Buttiglione, Karol Wojtyla, Eerdmans (1997) 6.
9 John Paul II, Address to the Fiftieth General Assembly of the United Nations Organization, New York, October 5, 1995, 8.
10 Francis E. George, OMI, Inculturation in Ecclesial Communion: Culture and Church in the Teaching of John Paul II, Urbaniana University Press, Rome, 1990.
11 Pontifical Council for Culture, Towards a Pastoral Approach to Culture, May 1999, Par. 3.
12 John Paul II, Migration Day Message, 1991.
13 Ibid.
14 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, Ignatius (1987) 79-80.
15 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “Christ, Faith and the Challenge of Cultures,” Origins (1993) p. 682 (Hong Kong, March 2-5 1993, 2).
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., p. 861.
18 John Paul II, World Day of Peace Message, 2001.
19 Ibid.
20 Domenico Rosati, Â“Italian National Day of Migration 2002”, Servizio Migranti 2002, No. 6, p. 609.
21 John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, no. 28.
22 Welcoming the Stranger Among Us; Unity in Diversity, U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2002, p. 34f.
23 John Paul II, Address to Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, April 2001.
24 John Paul II, Address to the International Union of Christian Business Executives (UNIAPAC), sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, March 5, 2004.
25 John Paul II, Migration Day Message, 2002.
26 Vatican II, Gadium et Spes, par. 56.
27 Towards A Pastoral Approach to Culture, Pontifical Council of Culture, par. 5.
28 John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 71.
29 John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, par. 27.
30 Ibid.

 

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