VATICAN CITY—Few concerns are today quite so topical or emotive as those of migrants and refugees.

The United Nations estimates there are approximately 175 million people living in countries outside their birth, 16 million of whom are refugees.

And with the growing complexities of globalization, the numbers are set to increase and, with them, the challenges they present—ranging from the plight of asylum-seekers to the sheer evilness of human trafficking.

Which is why the Holy See staged a large interdenominational conference Nov. 17-21 to examine pastoral initiatives that must be adapted to each community affected, taking as its theme “Starting Afresh from Christ—Toward a Renewed Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees.”

In his address to the Fifth World Congress on the migration and trafficking issue, Pope John Paul II said this work “represents a vast new field for the New Evangelization to which the whole Church is called” and reminded the participants that in responding to the challenges, it is not “a formula that we seek but a Person.”

Cardinal Stephen Hamao, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees, said the Church “cannot remain indifferent in the wake of the present plight of migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons.

”She wants to share in their joys and the grief… and be with them in their search for a better and safer life, worthy of being children of God,“ Cardinal Hamao said.

A major role of the Church in tackling issues of migration is that of advocacy work.

”Refugees have contributions to offer, but their voices are often not heard,“ said Sister Anne Elizabeth of the Jesuit Refugee Services in Malawi. ”Therefore they need others to speak on their behalf or to help them get their message to the right institutions.“

Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a member of the council, called on the Church to advocate at both the national and international level.

”We must never be accused of being silent when refugees seek a place of haven,“ he said.

The need for greater funding and sharing of resources was also emphasized to avoid the ”creation of explosive situations“ and, although international laws are set up to protect the human rights of migrants, the U.N. Rapporteur for the Human Rights of Migrants and Refugees, Gabriela Rodriguez-Pizarro, reminded the Vatican gathering that these ”rights are often not implemented."

U.S. Immigrants

The conference also heard there are approximately 8 million “undocumented” immigrants in the United States, many from Mexico and Central America, thousands of whom have died in attempts to cross borders.

“That we haven't provided remedies [for undocumented migrants] is a real scandal,” said Miami Bishop Thomas Wenski, chair of the Migration Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“[By not] legalizing them, we are in effect creating a new underclass, one that is legally sanctioned,” he told the Register. “The last time we did that it was called ‘Jim Crow,’ and our nation still is yet to recover from that.”

Father Anthony McGuire, director of Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees for the U.S. bishops' conference, noted that since 1996 and particularly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the United States has been stricken by a growing “fortress mentality.” In 1993, the United States received 120,000 refugees compared with 30,332 in 2002.

“Sometimes Sept. 11 becomes an excuse for prejudice, for restric-tionism, and that's what we're trying to combat,” said Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, N.Y., a member of the pontifical council. “We cannot, in a globalized world, stop the movement of people either as immigrants, not as refugees and certainly not as visitors.”

At the conference, Archbishop Augustino Marchetto, secretary of the council, said migration “involves suffering, trauma and humiliation, but it also includes Divine Providence with which, through the cross, Christians contemplate the Resurrection.”

He spoke of migration as a hope for the Church by obliging “us to rediscover the sign of catholicity … impelling local churches to open themselves up to the missionary cause.”

Sister Elizabeth underscored the importance of solidarity to the missionary cause.

“It is when they sense that kind of accompanying spirit and presence that they fully share the whole depth of their feelings, their pain,” she said. “We accompany them by embracing their stories of loss and even the guilt they feel at being alive when so many of their family have died.”

Many delegates were particularly encouraged by a day given to the importance of the Eucharist in adapting to diversity.

“We are one in the Eucharist,” Bishop DiMarzio said. “Even if it is celebrated in a parish with different languages, there is still a unity with one another.”

Church's Mission

Among the appeals at the end of the conference was for the Church “to take more seriously its vocation to walk with migrants and refugees” and “to provide a holistic pastoral approach.”

The conference also called on governments and civil societies to, among other appeals, “respect and protect” the human dignity and human rights of migrants and refugees and “to admit that repressive and restrictive policies are unable to control migratory flows.” Finally, refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons were urged to “learn the local language” of the receiving country, be “interested in their culture” and “contribute to building a society that grows in mutual respect and in the recognition of the inalienable dignity of each human being.”

Key to the debates was the treatment of migrants and refugees not as economic units or possible threats to security or cultural identity but as human beings born in the image of God.

“The human person cannot be reduced to a problem,” Bishop Wenski explained. “When we define a human person as a problem, then we begin to look for solutions. If we define a Jew as a problem, we look for a ‘Final Solution’; if we define an unborn baby as a problem, we look to abortion. … If we define immigrants as a problem, we look to build bigger defenses and detention camps.

”The human person, as Blessed Mother Teresa reminded us,“ Bishop Wenski added, ”is a person to be loved, a reflection of Jesus Christ, even though sometimes that person may appear to us to be in a very disagreeable disguise."

Edward Pentin writes from Rome.