In a recent document Catholics are urged to “become the travelling companions” of migrants and realize an “integral ministry” that may involve the various fields with a view to the preaching of the Gospel and evangelization. To this end “the establishment, or consolidation” of “forms of coordination, agile and flexible, but stable and recognized”, within each diocese or also with an interdiocesan or inter-parish character (with the name of secretariat or commission) is needed. The recommendation is made in a letter published on 20 December of the permanent Council of the Italian Episcopal Conference, addressed to the Christian communities on immigration and pastoral ministry, with the title “All the peoples shall come to you”. In their letter the Italian bishops appeal for attention to be devoted “to the growing presence of so many foreigners in Italy, with obvious social, economic, cultural and also religious implications”. The bishops see in immigrants “a specific and increasingly relevant field of action for the work of evangelization”. “Divesting themselves of every attitude of delegating the task to a few professionals write the bishops -, all the Christian faithful must feel themselves called to be a missionary Church”. Citing recent statistics that attest the presence of some three million immigrants in Italy (of whom half non-Christians, the other half subdivided into equal parts between Catholics and non-Catholics), the bishops urge inter-religious dialogue though “this is not alternative to evangelization” and “dialogue and brotherhood” with non-Catholic Christians, especially Orthodox immigrants from the countries of Eastern Europe, whose presence is the most numerous. “We need to share a dual responsibility say the bishops -: that of offering the good news to those who have not yet encountered Christ and confirming in the faith those who have”.
