Vatican City, Sep 27, 2017 / 12:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Wednesday announced a new initiative encouraging a “culture of encounter” and efforts to warmly welcome immigrants and refugees.
Sponsored by the global Catholic charities network Caritas Internationalis, the “Share the Journey” initiative is a two-year campaign dedicated to promoting both awareness and action on behalf of migrants and refugees, and helping them build connections with local communities.
“Don’t be afraid of sharing the journey. Don’t be afraid of sharing hope,” Pope Francis said during his weekly General Audience in St. Peter’s Square Sept. 27.
According to Caritas, the project was launched as a response to Pope Francis’ frequent call for a “culture of encounter.”
The project also aims to shed light on both the challenges and effects of migration at every stage of the journey in order to promote a “shift in thinking” on the issue. It will have the support of the ACT Alliance, which is a network of 145 Christian agencies and a variety of other religious congregations and civil society groups worldwide.
As part of the project, Caritas will launch various action-based initiatives in the communities in which they are present throughout the world.
.@CardinalChito w/Caritas Internationalis at Vatican Press Office to launch #ShareJourney initiative. Learn more: https://t.co/GN5af8cdie pic.twitter.com/tPlnI1Hjx1
— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) September 27, 2017
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, president of Caritas Internationalis, said he himself is an example of what young migrants can offer if given the opportunity.
“Whenever I hear news about the restrictions or even some moves that might affect children, minors (who are) migrants, I remember my grandfather, my maternal grandfather,” Cardinal Tagle told CNA.
“He was born in China and his mother was widowed, and she in her desperation didn’t know how to raise her child up into a decent life, so I suppose with a heavy heart, she decided to give away the child to an uncle, who was trying to do some trade in the Philippines.”
Cardinal Tagle explained that his grandfather never went back to China, but “thanks to people who received him, helped him, educated him, he was able to contribute to society.”
In addition to his work, “he was able to contribute a priest, a bishop, in my person,” Cardinal Tagle said. “So watch out. The children that we might be rejecting might be giving valuable contributions to society.”
The cardinal’s comments were made in reference to rising tensions surrounding the issue of migration in the U.S., where controversy has arisen over President Donald Trump’s travel ban, proposed border wall, and recent announcement of the phasing out of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which has benefited hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors.
In a press conference announcing the “Share the Journey” initiative, Cardinal Tagle said world leaders should remember that “we are all migrants. Nobody can claim to be a non-migrant, we are all passing in this world.”
With Cardinal Luis Tagle, pres of @iamCARITAS, for presentation of new “Share the Journey” project 4 #migrants & refugees pic.twitter.com/PNiJXEprfz
— Elise Harris (@eharris_it) September 27, 2017
“Nobody is a permanent resident,” and no one can claim to “own the space they occupy,” he said, voicing his hope that there would be a universal “conversion of mind” on the issue.
Acknowledging the fear that some might feel at having foreigners enter their country, the cardinal said these fears often dissipate when people take the time to sit with immigrants and listen to their stories. “You will see that they are like you and me,” he said.
Recalling how his grandfather came to the Philippines as a “poor boy from China,” he said, “who would have thought he would have a cardinal for a grandson?”
Present alongside Cardinal Tagle at the press conference was Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, along the U.S. border with Mexico, as well as the director of Caritas Ethiopia, Bekele Moges, and three young migrants from Africa.
The migrants were Yancuba Darboe from Gambia, 21; Amadou Darboe from Senegal, 20; and Berete Ibrahima from Guinea, 23. Each of them left their homes due to poverty or a lack of opportunities and endured harsh conditions, including torture at the hands of traffickers, before eventually arriving in Italy and finding a fresh start.
In comments to CNA, Sr. Pimentel stressed the importance of getting to know migrants personally.
Meeting and speaking with migrants face-to-face is “so important,” she said, “because that’s what causes the transformation in us.”
Sr. Pimentel recalled the story of a woman who had come to visit one of the centers operated by Catholic Charities in Rio Grande Valley. The woman was “one hundred percent against” their work, believing that migrants shouldn’t be allowed into the country.
In response, the sister gave the woman a tour, and “took her to visit the families and the children and showed her the reality, and she met them personally.”
When the visit ended, the woman’s whole perspective had changed, and she encouraged Sr. Pimentel to continue the work they were doing. The woman’s husband even called the center later to express his shock at the change in his wife’s attitude toward the issue.
“So I believe if somebody can be transformed so fast because of the fact that they saw that mother, that infant, that child (and) we have it in our hearts to reach out to those we find suffering, we will help that person that needs our help,” she said.
Sr. Pimentel described current immigrant policy in the U.S. as “harsh.”
“All the administrations, even the previous administration, were very harsh in deporting a lot of the immigrants and making those detention centers for family units,” she said, adding that in her view, “it’s so unjust and so unfair for a family with children, with infants, to be placed in detention facilities.”
“Just like the previous administration, this administration is doing the same and probably harsher,” she said, stressing that placing families in such centers is “not humane,” because they are essentially being put “into prisons.”
Whether you call it a detention center or even a “child care center,” Sr. Pimentel said, the reality is that “they really are prisons and it’s very depressing, so children should not be in those conditions.”
Instead, the sister said there should be an alternative available where families are allowed to stay together with someone to help them in the immigration process while authorities “figure out whether they have a reason to be in the United States or not, but not keep them for months in facilities that are so depressing and inhumane.”
Sr. Pimentel voiced hope that the new Caritas campaign would help people to truly understand the plight of migrants and push for “laws in our countries that respect the dignity and human life of people.”
The process of breaking the stigma surrounding incoming migrants starts with individuals and the process of encounter, she reiterated.
“Find that immigrant, just one, find out who they are,” she said. “Find out why they left their country and try to understand that, try to put yourself in their shoes and see if that helps you understand better why an immigrant has to go through what they do and what should be your responsibility and response to that reality.”
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Well and profoundly said on internalizing the Law as a rule of love. Would that we might accept this on face value. Nevertheless with Pope Francis there is always counterpoint. From: Eduardo Echeverria in Making Sense of Pope Francis II. “Gnosticism is one of the most sinister ideologies” according to Francis, which has a grip on the contemporary minds of many in the Church. Francis describes the characteristic of neo-gnostics to be such that they seek “to domesticate the mystery. They absolutize their own theories and force others to submit to their way of thinking, their own vision of reality to be perfect” (Pope Francis). In contrast to these neo-gnostics, Francis claims, “It is not easy to grasp the truth that we have received from the Lord. And it is even more difficult to express it. So we cannot claim that our way of understanding this truth authorizes us to exercise a strict supervision over others’ lives” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 43). Francis’ skeptical conclusion, if taken seriously, is self-refuting. “Truth is a relationship. Each one receives truth and expresses it from within according to one’s own circumstances” (The Pontiff). Does this apply to the Final Document? How can it not. It references what I previously compared to in ancient China Yin Yang philosophy in which opposites are nominal and consequently complimentary. Similar appeared in the West via Persia and Zoroaster. The complementary balance between good and evil the most absolute of opposites one day to merge in reconciliation. Manes followed Zoroaster in essence Augustine his troubled convert. In practice it’s an intricate theory of reality which appeals to the common unmoored conscience of modern Man. Absolutes aren’t relativism is [Clinton could thus respond It depends on what is is]. We find the effect of this entirely new pontifical religious ideology within the Church. Lack of cohesion structurally in continuous distancing within and morally discordant. This morning I preached on internalizing Christ and Law within taking cue from Jesus: Liberal Rabbi or Incarnate Messiah with accent on Christ conveyed unalloyed, whereas Francis’ self-refutation ideology would convey Christ as relational, understood conscientiously within the individual’s circumstances.
In the movie, The Song of Bernadette (1943), Bernadette is asked by the cure if she knows what a sinner is. Bernadette (academy award winner Jennifer Jones) answers: “A sinner is one who loves evil.” The cure is impressed that she says “loves evil,” rather than only “a person who does evil.”
A matter of the heart, and yet more, and from this address also Pope Francis’ complete message to “follow his law exteriorly and to accept it in one’s heart.” On this complete point, and to avoid any counterpoint thinking (as possibly in other addresses), St. John Paul II stresses in Veritatis Splendor that it is particular actions which can still be distinct sins against the Ten Commandments. To pretend that the “fundamental option” of the heart, for example, cancels such actual sins is a deception.
And while we’re at it, on the equally clear meaning of determinate and dogmatic truths, we have this from Pope Paul VI:
“As for the meaning of dogmatic formulas, this remains ever true and constant in the Church, even when it is expressed with greater clarity or more developed. The faithful therefore must shun the opinion, first, that dogmatic formulas (or some category of them) cannot signify truth in a determinate way, but can only offer changeable approximations to it, which to a certain extent distort or alter it; secondly, that these formulas signify the truth only in an indeterminate way, this truth being like a goal that is constantly being sought by means of such approximations” (from Section 5, Mysterium Ecclesiae, ratified by Pope Paul VI and signed by Cardinal Seper, Prefect of the CDF, May 11, 1973).
Peter,
Thank you for mentioning that.
I loved watching “The Song of Bernadette.”
I homeschooled my children for a number of years and a large part of the curriculum was supplemented by classic films like The Song of Bernadette and documentaries like Sir Kenneth Clarke’s “Civilization .”
There’s a wealth of excellent media resources out there and beyond giving knowledge of the saints and Christendom, older films can also give us a sense of the reverence mostly missing from our presnt era.
Good references Peter. Especially Pope Paul VI that I wasn’t aware of. During study of Man and ethical knowledge the question became what defines being human insofar as our intellect. That definition I presumed preeminently encompasses the capacity to identify and distinguish good from evil. It came down to the ability to distinguish the spectrum of opposites confirmed by Aquinas. Animals act instinctively toward a naturally inclined end. Man however can reason beyond natural inclination say hunger and determine differently, the opposite such as giving his meal to someone in greater need. An act that distinguishes our humanness. Dr Echeverria isolates this when referring to “Francis’ skeptical conclusion, if taken seriously, is self-refuting”. Self refutation by denying self evident moral absolutes is the initial step in developing a false conscience and distancing from Christ.
And to belabor my point it is the ability to identify opposites and choose what is best particularly moral good v evil that defines free will and true freedom.
Winning peace is far more important than winning a war.