Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

People on the Move

N° 100, April 2006

FOREWORD

to the hundredth issue of People on the Move   

          Our hundredth issue! A fine round number, a great number for a review “on the move”, a sign of continuity in spite of the changes our publication has known as the years have gone by. For some time now we have also been faithful to a certain colour: green, a symbol of hope. Hope in a world that badly needs it, especially the world for which our own specific pastoral care has been envisioned, wanted and lovingly practised: the world of human mobility. Every kind of human mobility is our concern: internal and international migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, foreign students, people under the solicitude of the Apostleship of the Sea and of Civil Aviation Apostolate, nomads, funfair and circus people, tourists, pilgrims, drivers and people working or living on the streets and railroad stations. 

           Together with documentation and reports, People on the Move generally publishes studies and articles. To help you find what you are looking for among all these “treasures” of our Review, as it celebrates its hundredth issue, we have here indices covering all the issues starting from No. 51, as the contents of the first fifty have already been classified and published in No. 60. The job of composing the new indices has been taken on by Fr. Gabriele Bentoglio, C.S., Official of our Pontifical Council, whom we thank sincerely. We added a list of the Congresses that have been organized since the foundation of our Dicastery. 

           The present issue also includes an account of the activities of the Pontifical Council and a presentation of its function as a think-tank in 2005, as well as its agenda, in principle, for this year. This will help you know our Pontifical Council better. Indeed, its complex nature, though clearly defined, is still not fully “grasped”. The Episcopal Conferences do not all regard it in the same way. As a result, the various aspects of our pastoral care are entrusted to varying types of Episcopal Commissions, whereas the goal should be a “National Commission for the pastoral care of human mobility”, embracing all sectors of this ministry. 

           We hope you enjoy our Review, and we wish it “a long life” in the service of the Church and “the world on the move”. 

+ Archbishop Agostino Marchetto

Secretary