Tearing down barriers

To tear down the barriers that cause the exclusion of immigrants in Europe which prevent them from taking part in the life of the hosting society and from developing a sense of belonging. It was the invitation to European Churches upon the conclusion of the meeting organized, December 2 to 4 in La Valletta (Malta) by the migration section of the “Caritas in Veritate” Commission of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE). The three-day meeting was attended by forty bishops and delegates from 25 countries (19 episcopal conferences) with responsibilities for the pastoral care of migrants. The gathering in the small insular Republic in the Mediterranean – marked by landings and transit of migrants – began on Monday with visits of small separate delegations to a “closed” centre (where migrants are kept in a state of “preventive detention” upon their arrival for a period up to 18 months in order to assess the possibility of obtaining a status of asylum seekers and later of refugee) and to an “open” centre. The Church in Malta in its various expressions, from the “Malta emigrantes commission” to the Jesuit refugee service, from associations to parishes, is very active in the pastoral care of migrants: its 14 centers on the islands give hospitality to 400 people, providing food, health, legal protections and services.{There are plans to open a day-care center for children in the near future. In Malta, the estimated official number of migrants ranges between 10 and 13 thousand, but they are said to be much less (about 7 thousand) because many of them manage to embark illegally towards Europe. Living like in limbo. “As soon as the migrants land in our ports – said Father Alfred Vella, director of the Malta emigrants Committee – they are questioned by the immigration police to ascertain their identity and country of departure. Then they enter ‘closed’ refugee centers, from which they cannot go out. “As a Church – he explained – we work hard to change this situation. We want reception centers to be open: mingrants’ needs should be heard and they should be free to leave”. “Unfortunately – he explained – in the last few months things have not improved, as now it takes more time to obtain a permit. Here in Malta migrants cannot get married, they canot travel to Europe nor back to their countries of origin. Owing to a set of legal difficulties they are in a state of limbo. These are issues that we face every day, but we feel we’ve reached a dead end, we cannot solve them”. After visiting the ‘closed’ centre of Hal Safi, where 700 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are detained, Father Duarte da Cunha, CCEE General Secretary, said he was “very impressed: I saw clever youths, good people, facing such a great and difficult challenge while coming from very distant countries. But it scares me to think that after spending ten to eighteen months in a center from which you cannot get out, even a good person could develop mounting anger. We must keep guard that these centers don’t become morally harmful”. “European schizophrenia.” In the days of the meeting, participants from European countries shared their personal experiences, good practices, and spoke of the problems they met during their daily personal encounters with the migrants. From Great Britain, that plans to restrict access to welfare to Romanian and Bulgarian migrants, to Moldova, marked by a growing phenomenon whereby domestic workers return from Italy and bring with them the elders to attend. While pundits fear that in the new Parliament formed after the upcoming elections, political forces in favor of immigration will gain few seats, to the benefit of those political groups that support populism and xenophobia. The European approach to migration, said sociologist Laura Zanfrini, from the Catholic University of Milan, “is the victim of a sort of schizophrenia caused by the attempt to keep together antithetical logics of inclusion and exclusion. This yields solutions that are often ineffective and unethical, harmful to the principles of the Church’s Magisterium”. An unresolved paradox, according to Zanfrini, “is to consider the migrant only as a ‘guest worker’, which lead to regulate immigration in terms of an economic phenomenon, neglecting the political feature, namely the idea of a multicultural society. “From the pastoral point of view – continued the sociologist – “the Church should implement an educational and awareness commitment to correct the procedural defect at its origin”. In his closing remarks father Luis Okulik, Secretary of the CCEE Commission “Caritas in Veritate”, pointed out: “Those who feel excluded become disheartened towards the hosting country”. That’s why “we need to tear down the barriers that generate exclusion”. “The Church uses a very effective method: taking care of others for reasons of faith”. The next meeting will be in 2015 in Lithuania, to continue to exchange experiences and pastoral networking at European level. Sir Europe correspondent from Malta, Patrizia Caiffa