Respecting the "collective identity" of the gypsy population, "eradicating racism and xenophobia", and an invitation to international governments and organisations to outline "a common, global and shared policy to pull gypsies out of poverty and rejection": this is the basic wish emerging from the document "Orientamenti per una pastorale degli zingari" (Guidance for a pastoral of the gypsies) developed by the Papal Council of the Pastoral for Migrants and Nomads, which was submitted today in the Vatican press room. The document which in 2001 was first drafted by a group of experts in an "unsatisfactory" way and whose final version was then developed by one single expert shows the Church’s attention to nomads that had already begun in the mid-twentieth century in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, now spread in most European countries, in some areas of Central and South America and in some Asian countries. In Europe alone, there are 15 million nomads of different races (Rom, Sinti, Manouches, Kalé, Gitans, Yeniches, etc.), including 4 million school-age children. The Church, said card. Stephen Fumio Hamao, president of the Papal Council of the Pastoral for Migrants and Nomads, "is called to recognise their right to have their own identity, by raising people’s awareness, in order to obtain more justice for them". An identity "often affected by persecution, exile, inhospitality, rejection, suffering and discrimination", as recalled by card. Fumio Hamao, but which "expresses itself in its own languages and has a culture and religiousness with common traditions and a strong sense of belonging". (to be continued)
