Christianity and Migration

Migration appears in many posts in our LT Christianity group and I wonder whether it is time to have a thread dedicated to this topic? Jesus' teaching on welcoming the stranger seems to be pretty clear, in Matthew 25 and throughout the New Testament, and Christian churches have always been prominent in providing hospitality and succour to travellers, migrants, pilgrims, refugees and other people on the move, while global Christian leaders, including successive popes and Archbishops of Canterbury, have been outspoken in favour of the rights of migrants. Many of our Christian congregations in Europe and north America are now depending increasingly on migrants, particularly from Africa and Latin America, to keep our churches open. And yet in these richer countries migration has become a polarising political issue, while perhaps many are unaware that the poorest countries in the world (including Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Colombia, Jordan and Lebanon) are already hosting millions of migrants on a scale unimaginable in the Global North. Again many Christian leaders have spoken up strongly about the human dignity of migrants, including Pope Leo and the Episcopal and Catholic bishops in the USA.

Whether we like it or not migration will only increase in the coming decades, driven not only by poverty, war and oppression but increasingly by climate change as more and more areas of the world become untenable for human life. It has been argued that global migration has been one of the key strategies which has kept the human species alive through ice ages and other climate changes during the last couple of hundred thousand years (cf for example Nomad Century by Gaia Vince). It's inevitable; it's going to happen despite the efforts of nationalists in a few major countries.

So what do we as Christians think? Hopefully we can have a charitable and civil Spirit-filled conversation about it, trying to avoid partisan political polarisation. Here's a couple of articles in the news today which may give some ideas of the breadth of this issue, and of the potential for migration to unite rather than divide peoples.

How migrant and overseas Christians are helping keep Australian churches alive (ABC)

An Anglican Church bishop in Queensland's north says that his 11 Pacific Islander ministers, serving the region's parishes, is saving those parishes from collapse. "Together they make up half of my full-time workforce in the diocese," Bishop Keith Joseph said. Census data shows the number of Australians who identify as Christian has halved from 86 per cent in 1971 to 44 per cent in 2021. But the decrease has been tempered by Christian migrants from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific...

In Tunisia, a church procession blends faith, nostalgia and migration (Al Jazeera)

The Virgin Mary procession in La Goulette unites diverse communities, reviving the memory of a historic Sicilian past... Hundreds of people – Tunisians, Europeans, and sub-Saharan Africans – had gathered for the annual procession of Our Lady of Trapani. Many of those participating in the procession, and the Catholic Mass that came beforehand, were from sub-Saharan Africa... a reminder of the distant past when the district was home to thousands of Europeans. The Catholic feast of Our Lady of Trapani was brought to La Goulette in the late 1800s by Sicilian immigrants, in the days when the port town was a hub for poor southern European fishermen in search of a better life... in the procession’s heyday in the early 20th century, native Tunisians, Muslims and Jews alike, would join Tunisian-Sicilian Catholics in carrying the statue of the Virgin Mary from the church down to the sea... Many attendees were young Tunisian Muslims, with little connection to La Goulette’s historic Sicilian population. A major reason for this is undoubtedly the high status accorded to the Virgin Mary in Islam – an entire chapter of the Quran is dedicated to her. Other participants seemed to be drawn by a feeling of nostalgia for La Goulette’s multiethnic, multireligious past... As Tunisia’s European population declined, the country has seen an influx of new migrant communities from sub-Saharan Africa... a mural in the church in La Goulette... Painted in 2017, it depicts the Virgin Mary sheltering a group of people – Tunisians, Sicilians and sub-Saharan Africans – under her mantle. The air around the Virgin in the mural is full of passports. The church’s priest, Father Narcisse, who hails from Chad, told Al Jazeera that these represent the documents that immigrants throw into the sea while making the journey from North Africa to Europe in the hope of evading deportation. The mural highlights the fact that the Madonna of Trapani, once considered the protector of Sicilian fishermen, is today called upon by immigrants of far more varied backgrounds... “Mary herself was a migrant,” Archbishop Lhernould said, referring to the New Testament story which narrates Mary’s flight, together with the child Jesus and her husband Joseph, from Palestine to Egypt. From a Christian perspective, he suggested, “we are all migrants, just passing through, citizens of a kingdom which is not of this world”...

From living homeless as a teenager to becoming Toowoomba's motorbike-riding priest (ABC)

Reverend Pauline Harley takes off her motorbike helmet, shakes out a shock of pink hair and walks into a small brick church in Toowoomba. She greets parishioners warmly before swapping her leather jacket for her white priest robes... As a teenager, she spent six "hungry and cold" months living on the streets in Christchurch, New Zealand, after enduring years of neglect and abuse from her family... She admits her journey to priesthood has been unorthodox but one that has informed her ministry and advocacy for social justice. "I have a lot of empathy for people because of my past and lived experience"... She had found herself in Australia in her 20s, having left an abusive marriage. "As a Kiwi, I couldn't receive any government benefits, so I had to find a way to work," Rev Harley said. She eventually took up administrative work at a local church office, where she became close with the reverend. "He was just a gentle, kind man who saw a broken person and was willing to give me a go," she said. At age 40, she decided to become an ordained minister, which involved acquiring a university theology degree and other religious qualifications. More than a decade on, she is the priest-in-charge for the Toowoomba West Parish... The parish is now heavily involved with social justice initiatives such as the Winter Shelter, in which churches use their facilities to offer a warm place for homeless people to stay during the coldest months of the year. There are 50 regular volunteers who help with the Winter Shelter and a local community kitchen. Rev Harley says her past has shown her the value of the kindness of strangers and helping others...

Another inspiring story about a migrant.

Advent reminds us to welcome refugees, says Archbishop Wilson as JRS condemns asylum crackdown (Tablet)

‘The Lord Jesus and his saving Gospel calls us to welcome the stranger, listening to their stories with love and compassion,’ said John Wilson, Archbishop of Southwark, in a visit to the Jesuit Refugee Service. ‘As we approach Advent, a season of hope, let’s remember that it is in welcoming those in need that we encounter the face of Christ’...

Before anything else, take a minute to pray for the 253 students and 12 teachers who were kidnappes last friday from St Mary's Catholic school in Papini, Nigeria. The truth is more than 300 kids were kidnapped with over 50 escaping from their Islamist Jihadi terrorists. While Americans are preparing visits to families on thanksgiving let us take time to pray and remember the families of the kidnapped and American resolve to stop the bloodshed.+AMDG+

I was musing last night on my own personal links to migration (apart from the fact that I am myself a migrant, living in a country and a continent which are not of my birth). If I look at a few dozen of my close friends and immediate family, I find intermarriages between people of British, American, Argentinian, Australian, Brazilian, Chilean, Comoros, Congolese, Danish, Eritrean, Finnish, German, Greek, Indian, Iranian, Irish, Jamaican, Kenyan, New Zealand, Pakistani, South African, South Sudanese, Spanish, Sudanese, Swiss, Ugandan and probably other nationalities, cultures and backgrounds from most of the world's continents. Many of them, and particularly their children, have dual citizenship and two passports. This small sample is mirrored everywhere I look, and makes a mockery of narrow nationalism, cultural protectionism, short sighted populism, racial supremacism and an obsession with artificial borders. All of them have brought great gifts not only to their families but to the countries in which they live and work. This is the future, and thanks be to God for it.

Do other members of the group also have multinational and multicultural groups of friends and family?

Well I grew up in a multiracial family because my parents adopted my brother from Hong Kong. And part of that growing up was in India. I came from the US to Austria to study, and married here - another American, and my boys all live in the US, married to Americans. But we are part of the UN community here in Vienna, so we know mostly migrants. A fair number of people decide to go 'back home' when they retire, although that may require some choices about whose home, when the marriage is mixed. A surprising number of those end up back in Vienna after a few years. I know a lot of people from different nationalities, but I often don't know what those nationalities are. We don't spend our time talking about where we came from, but what we are doing now and where we want to go from here.

>6 brone:

Off topic really, but here's another report which might be of interest about school violence in a part of Africa which gets far less attention than Nigeria. Indeed let us take a moment to pray for all victims of violence.

Catholic Leaders in Southern Africa Decry Escalating School Attacks, Urge Urgent Action (ACI Africa)

The National Catholic Board of Education (NCBE) and the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) Justice and Peace Commission have issued a joint statement condemning the rising wave of violence affecting schools across South Africa, describing the trend as a “ national moral failure” that demands urgent and coordinated intervention... NCBE and the SACBC expressed concern over the continuous insecurity in the South African nation, noting that despite several rape, killings and assault media reports, national leaders are still reluctant to act, hence making it a new normal. “Acts of violence in and around schools make headlines for a few days, politicians express shock, and then the country moves on, until the next tragedy"... in the first quarter of 2024/25, saying that South Africa recorded 12 murders and 74 rape cases on school premises. In the second quarter, 13 murders and 106 rape cases were recorded and “over 11,000 burglaries were reported in schools in the past year.” In their statement, the leaders emphasized the increasing violence in the nation, saying that in the Western Cape region, schools recorded 454 incidents of assault, many involving weapons. “These figures, shocking as they are, capture only a portion of the lived reality,” they said...

New images for the Stations of the Cross

https://www.instagram.com/p/DWjnsqukQnR/?igsh=MWN2aXcxNjh5eXh2aw==

>12 brone:

I'm travelling and don't have my laptop, and there's a limit to how much I can type with clumsy fingers on my cellphone. But just for the record, millions of Christians pray to Allah every day; I did so myself when living in an Arabic-speaking country, as Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. It is used in all Arabic translations of the bible, the Mass and other Christian religious texts, and in all Christian prayers, including Trinitarian ones. Millions of Christians also pray to Dieu, Gott, Dios, Dio, Mungu, Kuoth, Nhialic, Juok and many other translations of God in different languages. So I don't think we'll find too many takers in global Christianity for your call to "denounce Allah".

Two zebra and an eland have just sauntered past me. The beauties of God's creation.

In the Catholic Church today we celebrate the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, a hard-working down-to-earth carpenter who accepted an illegitimate child, born in a shack, and lovingly raised him as his own. But I post it in this thread on migration because not so long after the birth Joseph had to flee with his family, at God's command, to a distant land. Joseph, Mary and Jesus were migrants, refugees from state-sponsored violence and infanticide.

Today is also International Workers' Day or Labour Day, when we celebrate and honour workers and the labour movement. We might call to mind Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, "on the rights and duties of capital and labour", the first real attempt to reflect on the new phenomena of capitalism and communism through a Christian lens and the beginning of Catholic Social Teaching as a distinct branch of doctrine.

Today is also May Day, an ancient pre-Christian European festival marking the beginning of summer, traces of which can still be found everywhere - I grew up near a pub called the Maypole, and Maypoles can still be seen in many villages, although I'm not sure whether maidens still dance around them.

He was smuggled into the US in a car. He will lead the Catholic church in West Virginia (CNN)

In the heart of deep-red Appalachia, a top Catholic official will soon be delivering services with a heavy Spanish accent. But Father Evelio Menjívar Ayala seems unfazed by his new job – or the politics swirling around it... Menjívar, who arrived undocumented in the United States in 1990, is the Bishop-designate of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, which covers all of West Virginia – a state President Donald Trump won in three consecutive presidential elections. His appointment follows Leo’s strong rebuke of “the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States.” But Menjívar dismisses the idea that his appointment is a deliberate provocation for the US president. “I don’t think the pope is sending a message to Trump,” said Menjívar. “I believe the message he is sending is precisely that immigrants are ready to go wherever we are sent and to carry out work not only with our own people, but that we are ready to do work wherever it may be. There are no limits for us as immigrants”...

You know, when the USA has an immigrant in the White House, that sounds reasonable.

‘I will keep defending immigrants’: new bishop, who was smuggled into the US as a teen, joins pope’s resistance to Trump (Guardian)

The new bishop appointed to lead West Virginia Catholics has pledged to continue speaking up for immigrants in the mould of Pope Leo, who appointed him last week amid ongoing tension between Donald Trump and the Vatican. The Right Rev Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, 55, is not planning to hide his views after being elevated from assistant bishop in Washington DC to lead the diocese that covers West Virginia – the first Latino American bishop from El Salvador, who left Central America as a teenager and arrived in the US smuggled in the trunk of a car. “I will keep talking about people’s reality, defending immigrants and fighting for fair treatment for them”...

Ethiopia’s Catholic Bishops Appeal for Mercy, Protection of Migrants Facing Abuse, Death Sentences Abroad (ACI Africa)

Members of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Ethiopia (CBCE) have appealed for greater protection of Ethiopian migrants worldwide, warning that many are caught in systems of exploitation, violence, fear, and abuse as they seek better lives abroad. In a statement published Thursday, May 21, CBCE members express concern over the worsening plight of Ethiopian migrants in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, stressing that every migrant possesses inviolable human dignity regardless of legal status or economic condition. “Millions of young Ethiopian men and women leave their homeland not because they lack love for their country, but in search of better employment opportunities and improved living conditions,” Catholic Bishops in Ethiopia have said. They add referring to Ethiopian migrants worldwide, “Their motivation is honorable and sacrificial: to improve their lives, support their families, and ultimately contribute to the development of their country.” The Catholic Church leaders lament that many Ethiopian migrants instead encounter exploitation, isolation, abuse, and severe vulnerability...

>14 John5918: It is now June. As we were driving around Vienna doing errands yesterday we saw the preparations for taking down two naypoles. Not in central Vienna, but in the outer districts, in the 'village' centres.

Federal court in New Mexico lets Nigerian priest remain in U.S. during visa case (EWTN)

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico issued a temporary restraining order staying the expiration of a Nigerian priest’s student visa while the archdiocese petitions to sponsor his R-1 religious worker visa. The court’s June 4 decision to issue a temporary stay for Nigerian priest Father Martin Umeatuegbu’s student visa comes after the Trump administration issued proclamations placing a hold on all visa adjustment of status applications and restricting entry for all foreign nationals from “high-risk” countries, including Nigeria. The 14‑day stay, granted in response to the archdiocese’s May 22 emergency request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order, gives the Archdiocese of Santa Fe time to petition the U.S. government to upgrade Umeatuegbu’s student visa to an R‑1 religious worker visa, a five-year visa typically held by foreign-born priests while serving in the U.S. and applying for green card status. The outcome of Umeatuegbu’s case could set a precedent for other foreign-born priests from countries designated by the U.S. as “high risk”...

Religious leaders warn against World Cup's impact on migrants and the poor (NCR)

As the FIFA World Cup opens on June 11 across the United States, Mexico and Canada, a group of Dominican friars, sisters and lay leaders is calling on Catholics to celebrate the tournament while also paying attention to the people who may be left behind by it. In a joint appeal published in May, Dominican justice and peace promoters from the three host countries welcomed the World Cup as "a moment for sport" and "an opportunity for our common humanity," while warning about human trafficking, displacement, economic inequality, migration barriers and the exploitation that often accompany mega-sporting events...

Migrants in Canary Islands Tell Pope Leo XIV: We Do Not Ask for Privileges or Compassion (ACI Africa)

“No one leaves their land, their family, and their roots by choice when they can live in peace,” said Bousso Diouf, a woman from Senegal who spoke with the moral authority of someone who risked her life crossing the Atlantic in a wooden boat, knowing the journey could last a week or end adrift at sea. Diouf was among the migrants who greeted Pope Leo XIV at the Las Raíces reception center in Tenerife, where some 700 sub-Saharan African migrants — all adult men — are currently housed... “We come from countries where poverty, violence, war, persecution, and lack of opportunity forced us to leave,” Diouf said... One young Nigerian man said that crossing the ocean to the Canary Islands means facing hunger, cold, desperation, and often death. “Many brothers and sisters lost their lives at sea, and others continue to suffer in silence, victims of mafias that take advantage of need and human suffering,” he said. He also made a plea for humanity: “May we not be seen only as migrants, numbers, or documents but as people with stories, dreams, families, and hope.” “We do not ask for privileges. We do not ask for compassion. We ask for respect, humanity, and the opportunity to live with dignity,” he said...

This new cloudy political cowardice of yours needs to be addessed lest some believe your point of view be infallible. Some people do not like the word dogma they are free (in thier own minds) and there is no alternative for them or you. Yours is a life of pejudice a direction you follow. Your direction is far more fantasic than a plan. I often speak of the modern vagueness you and your heroes in losing and separating us as in a mist. I say it is not only a creed that unites us but a difference of creed that unites us. As long as the defference is clear. Boundaries which you dispise unites us because we are both dogmatists on the issue. It is like my saying God is one and you saying God is One in Three. Healthy bigotry is my way of meeting a tendency such as your Socialism. Genuine controversy, fair and honest thrown out there that our prejudices are divergent whereas our beliefs are always in collision. Believers are are always bunping into each other where bigots keep out of each other's way. I think Aristotle said it is man who is the measure. It is the Son of Man who scripture said, will judge the quick and the dead."AMDG"