On the move in the walkways of the world

The President of the Vatican’s Council for Migrants and Itinerant People, Archbishop Antonio Vegliò, has challenged Australia to dwell on the “positive and providential aspects of migration”.
Hundreds of people from migrant communities from around the Archdiocese of Sydney and beyond gathered at St Mary’s Cathedral Tuesday evening for a Multicultural Mass celebrated by Cardinal George Pell. Delivering the homily Archbishop Vegliò reflected on the experience he has garnered from visiting centers for refugees and asylum seekers and meeting with migrant communities during his stay in Australia:
“..visiting many ethnic communities, it has become evident the need to focus the attention on the values, the providential aspects, and the positive dynamics of the human mobility. Next to the lights, however, some shadows have also appeared, and I mean all those difficulties and challenges connected to the already structural phenomenon of migrations at a global level. As a matter of fact, it is what the Holy Father Benedict XVI keeps saying in the Messages he sends every year to the faithful, on the occasion of the World Day of Migrants and Refugees”.

The President of the Vatican council described the celebration of the Holy Eucharist as a “specific sign of the multi-ethnicity of the Australian continent, or better of its intercultural journey, which means a dialogue among cultures, more so than a simple tolerated coexistence”.

Reflecting on the Liturgy of the Word proper to the day he noted in Revelation “Behold, I stay”, invites to overcome barriers of fear, prejudice, indifference, selfishness, narrow-mindedness. The other person is not an abstract being, but a real person who was given the interior principle of freedom and wishes to meet with other free human persons. Consequently, in the context of human mobility, this means that the relationship among people has a very important value, because the respect, the promotion, the affirmation of sense of each of the subjects take place in the right interpersonal relationship.

Again returning to Revelation Archbishop Veglò’s reflected on the statement “Behold, I stand at the door”. Here, he said God is before us just like any of us is before others. The pastoral Agents of the human mobility are before migrants, refugees and itinerant people in a relationship of reciprocity, not one of narrow-mindedness. Yes, because the door suggests exactly this double orientation: the entrance of a house is like a border, that has a protective and a communicative dimension. The threshold of the house marks the boundary between what is public and what is reserved to the family that lives in the house, to its intimate and private life.

And in a third moment of reflection on: “Behold, I stay at the door and knock”, the prelate notes “Jesus stands still in front of the door and, after knocking, he waits for the door to be opened. Many migrants and refugees, once they reach the country of their destination, stop at the door of the local people”.

Archbishop Vegliò asks “What will be the reaction of those who are usually inside the house, safe, sheltered, with the assurance of being able to take advantage of goods and resources? That door can remain shut, also in order to defend customs, traditions, mentalities as well as prejudices, fears. Or, it can be an open door, that becomes welcoming and hospitable, and yet respecting justice and truth. Applied to the phenomenon of the human mobility, that does not surely mean fostering illegality, but promoting human dignity with a special attention to the legitimate search for safety and legality”.

He says: “the one who knocks at the door waits for the door to be opened”, and citing the Instruction Erga migrantes caritas Christi, the Archbishop concludes “we are all called to the culture of solidarity…it is the journey, not an easy one, that the Church invites to take” . “May you strengthen your enthusiasm and offer your precious service to God with generous dedication, in the Church, on behalf of the brothers and sisters on the move in the different walkways of the world”.

Archbishop Vegliò will address the Australian bishops who are in plenary assembly Wednesday May 11th.