Memory and commitment

“Even if the issue of migrations has been the subject of many international meetings and this meeting of ours might seem just one of many, full of words but with few facts, we are nonetheless ready to commit ourselves in real terms, because we believe that the Church, in Africa and in Europe, has a valuable contribution to make”, said Mgr. John Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja (Nigeria), on 19 November, in his homily during sung vespers in the Catholic cathedral of Liverpool, broadcast live by BBC radio. The service of vespers marked the beginning of the seminar (until 23 November) on “Migrations, new opportunity for evangelization and solidarity”, held jointly by the CCEE (Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences) and SECAM (Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar). The seminar is being attended by some thirty participants, including European and African bishops, representatives of offices of the Roman Curia and Catholic humanitarian agencies. The Liverpool seminar is a follow-up to the one held at Elmina (Cape Coast), in Ghana, on the new forms of slavery, as part of a four-year project of collaboration decided by European and African bishops in 2004. Liverpool is particularly significant because it was one of the major slave markets, and it is from here that thousands of emigrants left for America. (See further the SIR daily bulletin 19/21 – 11). Patrizia Caiffa, SIR Europe correspondent in Liverpool, reports on the meeting.Let’s not forget the past. Mgr. Charles Palmer-Buckle, Archbishop of Accra (Ghana), in a briefing to SIR Europe, said that discussion during the seminar will also focus on the many wars that continue to bedevil Africa, causing waves of internal refugees and political asylum seekers in Europe. It is probable that, at the end of the meeting, a joint appeal will be made for the Congo, Sudan, Somalia and the situation in South Africa, where social conflicts have been exacerbated by the migrants flowing into the country from neighbouring states. In the archbishop’s view, what might seem like the “indifference” of the international community towards current African conflicts “is due not so much to lack of political will as to the economic conditioning created by globalization”. At the following press conference, the Archbishop of Liverpool Patrick Kelly recalled that it was from the city’s harbour that the ships departed in the trade of raw materials with Africa during the period of colonialism and slavery. “We don’t want to forget our past so that it does not repeat itself”, said Mgr. Kelly. Human mobility as a resource. Cardinal Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb and Vice-President of the CCEE, in his opening address at the seminar, made an appeal for “governments and church communities to find new and non-simplistic solutions, capable of turning to account the various cultural traditions and the richness that human mobility brings with it”. “We wish to speak of human mobility not as a problem – said Cardinal Bozanic – but as a resource and opportunity for evangelization and solidarity”. The phenomenon of migration in recent decades, observed the archbishop of Zagreb, represents in fact “the greatest movement of people ever registered in history”, with some 200 million people involved between the 1960s and the present day. “This phenomenon – he pointed out – inevitably has repercussions on the social and economic structures of our societies, especially in terms of social composition, and religious and cultural diversity”. Cardinal Bozanic also pointed out “the tendency to treat immigration as a problem, arousing fears in society”. “In a reductive way – he said – we speak of ‘emigrants’ or ‘non-EU nationals’ without considering the provenance, culture and faith of these people”. So the seminar will take into consideration the phenomenon of migration in all its complexity: migration policies of governments in Europe and Africa, the responses of the Churches, the plight of refugees, the situation of immigrant workers and students, “in the consciousness that these stereotypes do not express the variety and the complexity of the human condition and motivation of emigrants”, explained the CCEE Vice-President. At the end of the seminar a joint message will be adopted and addressed at the Church in Europe.An examination of conscience. Cardinal Théodore-Adrien Sarr, Archbishop of Dakar (Senegal) and Vice-President of SECAM, appealed to the European countries for “a deeper examination of conscience with regard to respect for the dignity of each and every human being”, given that “the fingerprint of God is to be found in every man and woman”. “A man without documents is not a man without rights”, said the cardinal. “Africa is rich – he continued -, but Africans are very poor. The continent possesses a third of the planet’s mineral resources. It’s a treasure, but it mustn’t be plundered or squandered. We are all interested in the development of Africa. If we fail to give a future of dignity to her youth, they will succumb to violence or extremism, choosing en masse to emigrate, especially to Europe, and this will bring with it terrible problems”.