Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

People on the Move

N° 110, August 2009

THE FIRST EUROPEAN MEETING

FOR PASTORAL CARE OF THE ROAD/STREET

Interview with Vatican radio

by Archbishop Agostino Marchetto

 (23^rd September 2009)

Between the 29^th September and the 2^nd October the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People will be hosting, here in Rome, the First European Integrated Meeting for the Pastoral Care of the Road/Street.  This comes as second in a series following closely the First Continental Meeting held last year in Latin America.  

In what ways do you believe that this Meeting can be of help to those who are concerned – especially pastoral agents - with the pastoral care of the road/street in Europe?

I have been very pleased with the response to this meeting. There will be 17 European countries represented together with representatives of religious congregations, associations, movements and agencies involved with the pastoral care of the road making over 70 participants in all. Such a response tells us that there is a clear need to discuss and share in this important pastoral area.  Our experience last year in Latin America also bore this out. We have based our four days together on the four distinct sub sections covered in our “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road Street” published by this Dicastery in 2007, these being the pastoral care of the road in general – lorry drivers, railway workers and the development of better road ethics leading to improved road safety –, the liberation of women of the street, the care of street children and finally those who are homeless. It is not always easy to find a direct synthesis between these groups but there is a clear connectedness in the fact that the road has become the place where they spend a large part of lives and may have even become their home. Many of these require a specific pastoral response, especially those who are the most weak and vulnerable. Those who have come together for this First European Meeting have all, in some way, responded to these needs and are working in one field or another to bring support, and above all dignity, to those on the roads. I believe that over these next days that the listening and sharing of pastoral practice and concerns not only brings support and encouragement but enables learning from one another creating an even greater connectedness and collaboration in the Church’s response to those on the road and in the streets. Finally, let me say, that I believe that what we discuss here in Europe can also be of help beyond the confines of the continent. Our deliberations last year in Latin America are also beginning – I see – to bear fruit in a wider context. 

You have already mentioned the publication of the Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road/Street. Now after two years since its publication, do you believe that it is becoming a useful document in the areas of pastoral care that affect the road?

Let me say that since 2002, the Pontifical Council has engaged in a revitalization of the pastoral care of the road street, in the overall context of human mobility. The need to draft a specific document covering these subjects emerged in the course of the First European Meeting of National Directors of the Apostleship of the Road in February 2003, with a purpose to guide and create a coordination between all the ecclesial work that was being undertaken, including that of collaboration with civil authorities and to encourage and stimulate Episcopal Conferences of various countries to develop and further this pastoral care whenever possible. The lines of action were eventually published in 2007 under the title “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road-Street” and have subsequently been translated into many different languages.[1] The fact that already there have been many translations of this document, some taken independently as an initiative of Bishops Conferences show that many are finding these Guidelines as a useful tool in supporting pastoral care and programmes. We are also finding an increasing interest in the document and how best it can be used during the frequent Episcopal ad limina visits here in Rome.  I believe also that they are an important signal that the Church is clearly concerned with this area of pastoral need and looking for ways to respond accordingly.

Your Meeting covers, as you say, a wide spectrum of pastoral care to those on the roads/streets. Are you able to give any priorities to areas of concern or need?

I would be reticent to say that one area is more important to another. We are dealing with human persons, their lives and above all their dignity. We must remember each person is precious in the eyes of God and valuable to him. Clearly the needs of those who find themselves on the road/street are far reaching. Some of them are material and human, psychological and also spiritual. Some are crying out for help, others are simply searching for a meaning and a synthesis to their lives. In this respect I am thinking of the difference between those who work in long distance lorry driving compared with the plight of a woman trafficked for prostitution.

Let me say that last year 43,000 people died on the roads in Europe in traffic accidents and some 1.7 million people were injured. Not only is each incident tragic in the loss of life but it deprives families of fathers, mothers, children, not to speak of economic and social damages. We should not also forget that today 44% of goods in Europe are transported by road bringing its own large constituency of lorry drivers with their own specific needs. Today the problem of prostitution in the continent is sadly escalating as the demand grows with annually thousands of women, many who are trafficked, caught in a downward spiral from which they are unable to release themselves. Today there are also said to be up 250,000 children on Europe’s streets together with nearly 3 million homeless.  I have chosen to mention these few statistics to illustrate that it is impossible to single out one specific area as important over another.

However I hope our meeting together will be able to identify certain important areas in which the Church in her response to these vast needs can be useful. We need continually to be aware of our need to collaborate and work together, when and where possible, with all other agencies of pastoral care who are trying to achieve the same ends. Above all our unique contribution must be in the words of Pope Benedict in his recent Encyclical Caritas in veritate “to have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation.”[2]