Christmas Message of Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People

(December 15, 2011) The mystery of the Incarnation brings first and foremost a message of universal Love which we are invited to share in the increasingly international, multicultural and multi-religious maritime world, said the Christmas message from the Vatican for the Migrants and Itinerant people. Presenting his Christmas Greetings Archbishop Antonio Maria Vegliò President of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People said that the gifts of joy, peace and serenity brought by the Baby Jesus will reach them wherever they may be, and will be shared by their families and bear fruits of love and happiness. The Archbishop added that this love of Jesus embraces all the people of the sea without barriers or discriminations and becomes the foundation of a new way of living together respecting the diversity and dignity of every human being. Our Christmas celebration announces that the Word of God was incarnated in our divided and imperfect human reality in order to bring it to perfection. With the power that comes from Jesus who walks together with all human persons, the Council wants to commit itself in finding lasting solutions to the different problems they face every day, including exploitation and abuses in the working environment, the criminalization of their actions, the abandonment in foreign ports, the separation from their families and the ever more threatening danger of piracy. Speaking on the mystery of celebration Archbishop Vegliò said that this mystery invites all to be witnesses of Jesus in the ever more varied world of the sea to become instruments of a new evangelization showing how the Christian prospective enlightens, in an unprecedented way, the great problems of history. This is indeed a moment for us to reflect on the mystery of the Incarnation of the eternal Word of God becoming flesh and making his dwelling among us.