The regular immigrants in Spain are three and a half million, about 8.4% of the total population. Spain too, like other European countries, over the last few years has turned from a country of emigrants (currently about one million Spanish people live abroad) to a country of immigrants. This demands a "differentiated" response by the Church and the "creation and improvement of church services" and civil facilities. This was written by the Spanish bishops through the Bishops Committee for Migration- in their message, called "Let’s buld together: the neighbourhood, the city, the world" in the run-up to the 92nd World Day of the Migrant and Refugee, which will be celebrated all over the world on Sunday 15th January. In Spain, the bishops recalled, "there is hardly one province with no immigrants", the majority of whom come from Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, with peaks of 1.7% to 30% of the population. The Spanish Church therefore asks its devotees "to responde in a fit manner to the immigrants’ requirements and to keep up with their needs, so that they will not be considered just cheap labour that supports our economy, but citizens having the same dignity and the same rights and duties as the natives, able to perfectly fit in with our society". The bishops ask to welcome in the best possible way the Catholic immigrants in the communities and to entertain an inter-confessional and inter-religious dialogue with the others, especially Muslims, "however difficult this may be". The encounter with the "different", they specify, must lead people "to overcome any ethnic, cultural, political and religious prejudice". The Bishops would like this pastoral attention to translate into "appropriate services for social actions and charity” and "civil tools, means and facilities for the correct integration of the immigrants and their families”.
