Thinking of their children

From March 7 to 10 Barcelona hosted the annual meeting of “The Pastoral Care of Migrants in Europe’s Big Cities” which brought together pastoral coordinators and workers from Vienna, Brussels, Lyon, Frankfurt, Cologne, Milan, Turin, Rome, Luxembourg, Basilea, Barcelona along with representatives of National Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants from France, Spain, and Switzerland. The theme addressed was, “How do we offer pastoral care to immigrants’ children?” It is a crucial question for the future of the Church in Europe. Faith proclamation and nourishment for the offspring of immigrant citizens is a pivotal issue, as the new generations of immigrants form an increasingly larger portion of European youth. While not purporting to provide an answer, Barcelona’s symposium constituted an occasion to acknowledge a series of questions.Luisa Deponti, from the Immigration Study Centre in Basilea, chaired by Father Graziano Tassello, provided a briefing on the event.A variety of situations. Presentations on the context of different European cities highlighted the variety of situations. Some countries with long-dated immigration such as Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, are characterized by second or third generation migrants, born and raised in the country of arrival, constituting a large part of the population. Immigrant children constitute growing population brackets in Spain and in Italy, while over the past years these countries have witnessed frequent family reunifications, with the arrival of children and adolescents who had been living away from their parents, and who had gone to school in their respective homelands. Their inclusion in the areas of education and professions is critical to their integration into European society and the opportunity for children to develop within their cultural and linguistic diversity. Immigrant children are prone to develop bilingualism and a sense of belonging to two different cultural environments. This is an added value for European countries, which needs to be appraised accordingly. Nonetheless, in those areas with the oldest migration patterns, achievements in this field are not yet satisfactory. The Church’s commitment also has a social, educational, and political character, in order to ensure equal opportunities to the young and to combat the spread of xenophobia.Three forms of Pastoral Care in one. Participants focused on the Spanish and Catalan context while sharing their quest for a targeted pastoral care for the offspring of Catholic immigrants. Debates explored proposals to help immigrant children and their indigenous peers become adult Christians, bearing Christian witness in a secularized society marked by an unprecedented diversity of religious traditions. Also in this case, the various immigration stages ought to be valued. Reception and pastoral guidance to young people arriving for family reunification purposes must be conveyed in their mother tongue. Those born in the countries of departure ought to be helped become active members of the local Church community whilst preserving their religious ties linked to the family, and therefore, to their culture of origin. Long before being “migrants” they are “young people”, active participants of global youth lifestyle and communication tools. And accordingly, the adolescents risk relinquishing religious practices while adapting to the new secularized environment. Proposals include greater convergence between, family, youth and the pastoral care of immigrants: providing support to migrant families in order to promote the transmission of faith to the youth also in the cultural environment of arrival. Several examples were made of youth ministry whereby young people of foreign origin and indigenous Catholics gather to share the faith journey of discovery of an open and universal Christian identity. Finally, the same local church is urged to bear Catholic witness in a path of conversion leading to reception and communion amidst diversity.