FORMS OF EFFICACIOUS SERVICE IN THE FIELD OF MIGRATION

VATICAN CITY, NOV 12, 2001 (VIS) - The Pope received today in the Clementine Hall sixty members of the Council of the International Catholic Migration Commission, on the occasion of their assembly.

After recalling that this year they celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Holy Father said that "In the time since your foundation, patterns of human migration have changed, but the phenomenon is no less dramatic, and your work grows more urgent as the problem of refugees grows ever more acute. Indeed, now is the time for still more generous and effective forms of service in the field of human migration, helping to ensure that people already marginalized will not be further penalized because they are not a part of the process of economic globalization.

"Today," he continued, "I wish to invite you to an ever deeper awareness of your mission: to see Christ in every brother and sister in need, to proclaim and defend the dignity of every migrant, every displaced person and every refugee. In this way, assistance given will not be considered alms from the goodness of our heart, but an act of justice due to them."

John Paul II urged them, "as a Catholic International Organization united with the Holy See in the great task of promoting solidarity, never to grow weary in the search for new modes of ecumenical and interreligious cooperation, which are needed now more than ever."

At the end of the meeting, the Pope briefly greeted a group of representatives and members of the "Migrantes" Foundation, which works in the name of the Italian Episcopal Conference and is also celebrating 50 years of life. "The Foundation," he said, "is now committed to supporting the Italian ecclesial structures in the human and spiritual care of the immigrants who come to Italy."

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