IMMIGRANTS DESERVE RESPECT FOR THEIR DIGNITY

VATICAN CITY, JUL 9, 2002 (VIS) - Archbishop Stephen Fumio Hamao, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, participated last week in a congress that took place in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, sponsored by the Office for Human Development of the Federation of Asian Episcopal Conferences.

Archbishop Hamao recalled that all people by virtue of the fact that they are sons and daughters of God possess their own dignity. "This dignity never disappears, whatever the external circumstances may be, even when a human person loses his mind, commits a crime or is on his death bed. Persons in an illegal situation and asylum seekers maintain that dignity."

Christian solidarity manifests itself, he underlined, in taking "care of human beings, especially young people, minors and children, who are incapable of defending themselves because they lack protection under the law and often do not know the language of the country in which they have been obliged to seek refuge due to natural catastrophes, wars, violence, persecution, even genocide in their own country or to economic conditions there that are such as to endanger their physical integrity or life itself."

The president of the council affirmed that the "obligation to receive immigrants cannot be determined only by the mere defense of its own well-being. Emigrants have the right to live worthily with their family, to preserve and develop their cultural and religious patrimony, and to be treated under all circumstances in keeping with their human dignity."

Archbishop Hamao concluded by emphasizing that "migration has certainly opened a new way for inter-religious dialogue." And he urged believers of different religions to consider dialogue as a "leading way to follow."

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