” “Migrant women and families

In a European society ever more characterized by the presence of immigrants (Moslems alone number some 20 million) “a danger to be avoided is that of cultural standardization based on Western models. It is inconceivable that any useful and fruitful relationship can be built on the basis of the destruction and dissolution of cultures and religions different from our own”. That’s the view of Father Angelo Negrini , of the Pontifical Council for Migrant People, one of the speakers at the congress of bishop delegates and national directors for the apostolate of migrations of 18 episcopal conferences of Europe being held at Smyrna in Turkey from 9-14 October on the theme “Women and families in migrations”. The meeting, organized by the CCEE (Council of Episcopal Conferences of Europe), will also hear reports from Moslem academics at Ege University in Smyrna. The main speakers include: Gabriele Erpenbeck, of the university of Hannover (Germany), who will discuss the developing situation of migrant women and families in Europe, and Ina Siviglia Sammartino, of the theological faculty of Sicily, who will try to reply to the question: “What pastoral attitudes should be adopted to this development?”. Below we give a few excerpts from Father’s Negrini’s reflections. Immigrant families in Europe. The presence in Europe of countless families of different religions (thanks to the reuniting of families) is seen by the Church not as a threat – recalls Father Negrini – but as an “opportunity”: “Our Christian communities thus have the opportunity to discover and testify their faith and a more authentic Christian life in the very moment in which they come into contact with the religion of other ethnic groups”. Mixed marriages. Both Catholics and Moslems, however – as Father Negrini stresses – advise against mixed marriages, “because they generally present considerable difficulties in terms of different Islamic traditions, customs, mentalities and laws regarding the position of women in relation to men and on the institution of marriage itself, whose monogamous and indissoluble nature is fundamental for a Catholic”. For this reason, he explains, “the Catholic Church considers it her duty to remind her faithful about the difficulties they could run into [in mixed marriages], in terms of the expression of their faith, respect for reciprocal convictions (which remains a duty) and the education of their children”. The situation of Moslem women… More complex is the situation of immigrant women in Europe, obliged in some cases “to maintain and follow, in the private sphere, models of conduct peculiar to the culture and religion of their country of origin”. This often causes “an indefinite series of adaptations, conflicts and contradictions and not seldom interior anguish”. “Social invisibility, marginality in the labour market, loneliness, the desire for social emancipation and economic independence, linguistic and cultural barriers, these, in Father Negrini’s view, are further motives of psychological difficulty encountered by Moslem woman. They are, in addition, often subjected to strong conditioning due to their religious beliefs and, even more often, to prejudices and clearly distorted perceptions by the host population”. …and of immigrant Christian women. As for immigrant women of Christian religion, “the problem of their reception and promotion in the host community remains open”: “In the past their silence was accepted as natural and congenial to the role of women itself, in a social context in which this silence was the rule, even in civilian life. Today women have asked for and generally obtained the right to speak out in civil society, but not yet fully, according to some, in the ecclesial community”. Father Negrini therefore advises “that their specific role be recognized within the Church, in which men and women enjoy effective equality, albeit with their own peculiar and complementary gifts and duties”. Patrizia Caiffa SirEurope correspondent at Smyrna