(June 11, 2011) “You are in the Church not on the margins, but in certain aspects
you are at the centre, you are in the heart of the Church” said Pope Benedict XVI,
meeting the 2000 odd gypsy pilgrims from all over Europe gathered Saturday in the
Vatican Paul VI audience hall. He was quoting the words of his predecessor Pope Paul
VI pronounced in 1965. Earlier Archbishop Antonio Maria Vegliò, President of the
Vatican Pontifical Council for the pastoral care of Migrants and itinerant peoples
had welcomed the gypsy pilgrims and thanked all those Church groups that had made
this event possible. . The Pope in his discourse recalled all the travails endured
by the gypsies in particular under the Nazis. Present among the pilgrims was a survivor
of a Nazi concentration camp. May you in future never more be subjected to such outrages,
the Pope fervently wished. You seem to be without any fatherland, and thus precisely
the entire European continent is your home. And the Pope invited them to write a new
chapter of their own history and that of Europe. The gypsy family has to be integrated
into the context of the Eureopean family, sharing equal rights and duties. The Pope
held up for their imitation the faith and love for the Church of the gypsy Christian
martyr, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth and 75th of the
martyrdom, of Blessed Ceferino Gimenez, of Spanish origin, Bl. Gimenez lived from
1861 to 1936 and was beatified by Bl. Pope John Paul II in 1997. The Pope invited
them to contribute their share to the evangelising work of the Church and he warned
them against certain sects that would try to wean them away from the Church. Four
gypsies addressed the Pope and gypsy performances enlivened the meeting