A Haitian migrant carries a child as he walks through the forest in Tuxtla Chico, Mexico, Sept. 16, 2021, as part of a group of thousands of migrants who were heading to the U.S. border. (CNS photo/Edgard Garrido, Reuters)
OFFICE FOR SOCIAL MINISTRY
“The Church is called to go out into the streets of every existential periphery to heal wounds and to seek out the suffering, without prejudice or fear, but ready to widen her tent to embrace everyone. Among those dwelling in those existential peripheries, we find many migrants and refugees, displaced persons and victims of trafficking, to whom the Lord wants his love to be manifested.” (Pope Francis, Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Sept. 26, 2021)
Since 1914, the Catholic Church has been celebrating the World Day of Migrants and Refugees (WDMR). The day is an opportunity to express awareness of and concern for vulnerable people on the move; pray for them as they face many challenges; and increase engagement with migrants and refugees to build together a future of justice, peace and hope for all.
The central theme of this year’s 107th WDMR is “Towards an ever wider ‘we’” which comes from the recent papal encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti.” There and in his WDMR message, Pope Francis makes this compelling appeal: “We are all in the same boat and called to work together so that there will be no more walls that separate us, no longer others, but only a single ‘we,’ encompassing all of humanity. Thus I would like to use this World Day to address a twofold appeal, first to the Catholic faithful and then all the men and women of our world, to advance together towards an ever wider ‘we.’”
This year’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees theme emerges when in the news we see many heartbreaking images of migrants and refugees around the world: the evacuation of 100,000 refugees fleeing Afghanistan after 20 years of war; the arrival of thousands of migrants at the U.S. southern border fleeing violence, natural disasters, poverty and rampant gang violence in their home countries, including the recent human wave of 10,000 Haitians. This is only a glimpse of the more than 250 million people around the world forced to be on the move, their plight exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The world day focuses light on the vulnerable people on the move who are all too often hidden in the shadows and on the margins of society. Our Holy Father calls not only for prayers but also for action aimed at the basic needs of millions of migrants and refugees, including their need for vaccinations in their countries of origin, transit and destination.
In the days leading up to the WDMR 2021, U.S. bishops gathered near Chicago for a conference of the Catholic Extension which supports poor mission dioceses with ministries for very vulnerable populations. Cardinal Michael Czerny, the undersecretary of the Vatican Migrants and Refugee section, gave the in-person presentation, “Building a Church that Goes to the Peripheries,” which echoed Pope Francis’ WDMR message.
“I hope you can take a shared approach in your work with migrants and refugees. There are ‘borders’ everywhere throughout the U.S.A. — yes, along the Rio Grande, and there are also vulnerable people on the move hiding, stuck, invisible in every diocese, including the ‘Extension’ ones. As they move from Haiti, Central America, and elsewhere through Mexico and into the United States, they shouldn’t feel like they’re moving through different churches but within one ‘borderless’ church. They should experience, as much as possible, a continuity of pastoral accompaniment and care: welcomed on arrival and protected, promoted and integrated there, or if moving on, sent to another welcoming community of one and the same church.”
Cardinal Czerny, who was a refugee from Czechoslovakia to Canada, added, “No one is useless, in the words of ‘Fratelli tutti,’ and no one is expendable … Each of us, moreover, can learn something from others. This means finding ways to include those on the peripheries of life.”
For more on the World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2021, please visit www.migrants-refugees.va where there are very moving videos with migrants, refugees, and Pope Francis talking story. You will also find inspiring scriptural passages and papal quotes for parish prayer services, such as this one from “Fratelli Tutti”: “Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all.”
Mahalo,
your friends at the Office for Social Ministry
