From strangers to citizens” “

“Analysing the situation of Italian Catholic missions in Europe in order to identify new priorities”. This is the aim of the second meeting of national European delegates of the CEI Migrantes Foundation which opened today, 5 September, at Yverdon (Switzerland) and will run until next Sunday, 8 September. During the meeting, its organisers explain, “reflection will be given to the ‘Notes on the future of ad Migrantes pastoral care workers’, and proposals will be presented regarding the revision of the ‘De Pastorali Migratorum cura’ subsidy”. It is the task of European national delegates to co-ordinate, in each nation, the pastoral work of Italian Catholic missions in support of our emigrants. At present there are two million Italian passport holders living in the various European countries. The biggest community is in Germany with some 680,000 individuals. We asked three of the national delegates to speak about their pastoral commitment. Germany: “No longer foreigners”. “In Germany, the view of migration has undergone a great evolution over the last few years. Testimony of this is the fact that emigrants are no longer seen as a workforce but as people to be integrated into society. There is no more talk of foreigners but of citizens with a different mother tongue”. These are the words of Father Gabriele Parolin, Migrantes national delegate for Germany. He adds: “At an ecclesial level too, there has been close collaboration for some time between ethnic foreign missions and local parishes. This necessity is dictated, above all, by the lack of priests, but also by the need to present ourselves as a united Catholic Church. Of course, the experience of each diocese is different. In Rottenburg am Neckar, for example, pastoral units co-ordinated by a priest have been created to bring together three or four German parishes and a part of the mission. Collaboration with the local Church is also important for another reason: there are 680 thousand Italian emigrants and at least half of the them (who belong to the first generation) are not integrated, while another part is in the process of becoming inserted”. Switzerland: “We are not a ghetto”. “Working in full harmony with Swiss dioceses”. This, explains Don Antonio Spadacini, national delegate for Switzerland, is the objective of the 78 priests who work in the Italian Catholic missions. “Our pastoral activities”, says Don Spadacini, “are specifically aimed at Italians, but good relations are also being created with the French- and German-speaking people of the local community”. For Don Spadacini, “the most difficult goal to achieve is interacting with local communities in order to discover the richness of differences and traditions, and so achieve true communion. The missions are not ghettos but open communities”. This is the aim “of the unified pastoral projects that are taking place in some dioceses, and of the initiatives promoted by missionaries such as holding a monthly bilingual Mass or celebrating the feasts of patron saints with Swiss parishes”. Presently, Italians in Switzerland number some 310 thousand, of whom more than 100 thousand have dual nationality. Belgium: “New migrations”. “Every year, around five thousand Italians come to Brussels to work, perhaps in the European Union, or to study”. These people, for Don Giambattista Bettoni, Migrantes national delegate for Belgium, are the new emigrants to whom “we must offer the community of faith”. This does not mean, Don Bettoni explains, “separatism from the Belgian Church, but the evaluation of richness shared”. Among the initiatives of the Italian Catholic missions, Don Bettoni recalls “the monthly training course held by missionaries on the same day and hour at six different locations in Belgium. It represents a way of not forgetting that one pertains to a community of foreign origin. There are also spiritual retreats which will soon be promoted in collaboration with Italian priests working in missions in France”. According to Italian statistics, around 285 thousand of our emigrants live in Belgium today. C.V.