JUBILEE OF MIGRANTS AND ITINERANT PEOPLES

VATICAN CITY, JUN 2, 2000 (VIS) - This morning in St. Peter's Square, the Pope presided at a Mass for 50,000 people on the occasion of the Jubilee for Migrants and Itinerant peoples. Thirty cardinals and bishops and more than 700 priests concelebrated with the Holy Father.

In his homily, John Paul II said that among those present there were "migrants from various countries and continents, refugees who have fled from violent situations and who ask to see their fundamental rights recognized," foreign students, seafarers, aviators, tourists, nomads and circus workers.

"Your Jubilee, dear migrants and itinerant peoples," he continued, "expresses with special eloquence the central place that the charity of welcome must occupy in the Church. ... From the moment the Son of God 'pitched his tent among us,' each individual has, in a certain way, become a 'place' for meeting Him. Welcoming Christ in the brother and sister tried by need is the condition for meeting Him perfectly and 'face to face' at the end of the earthly journey."

John Paul II highlighted that, "in a society like ours, complex and marked by multiple tensions, the culture of welcome demands prudent and far-sighted laws and norms that evaluate human mobility positively, and anticipate its possible negative manifestations. This is necessary, in order for each person to be effectively respected and welcomed. ... This is the message that this jubilee celebration wishes to transmit: may man and women the respect of their rights always be placed at the center of the phenomena of mobility."

The Pope affirmed that the presence in Rome of migrants and itinerants highlights the importance that human growth "be constantly illuminated by Christ and His Gospel of hope. It is from this point of view that we must continue to commit ourselves, supported by divine Grace and the intercession of the great patron saints of migrants: St. Frances Xavier Cabrini and Blessed John Scalabrini."

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