We are launching a new section: “…From the Southern Border”. We want it to be a window to share, inform and denounce from the reality of immigration.
According to recently published analyses of the social reality, inequality in the world has reached unprecedented levels as well as poverty and social exclusion, with the injustice that this entails, have increased at an alarming rate in Europe in recent years[1].
Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, echoes what is happening in our society today: (…) Masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading….. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”. (EG 53).
We are one human family. But while many subordinate everything to consumerism there are billions of excluded people whose interests do not seem to count (MS 6).
The cry of the poor and needy is heard in a variety of ways in our world. The situations of inequality and injustice are a challenge to us. They generate a widening gap between rich and poor, the growing number of the excluded and the discarded (immigrants, displaced persons, refugees, homeless, neglected populations, mistreated women, children, the elderly and the abandoned sick people) and the multiple manifestations of violence (sometimes even in the name of faiths and religions). Millions of innocent people suffer for no reason (MS 9) .In the words of the European bishops: “The situation is dramatic and, for many people, even tragic”[2]
At this time many people associate Europe more with problems than opportunities. The difficulties seem to be more prominent than the achievements and factors to be optimistic. The suffering and injustice in which millions of people around the world live have unified in the last few years many Europeans, both those born on the continent or coming from other places, who experience poverty, unemployment, insecurity, discrimination and a lack of enthusiasm and purpose. The gap between rich and poor has also grown in our continent; young people with a complicated future and old people alone and in precarious situations are becoming more and more.[3]
And in this context we also discover the generous response and solidarity of many people and groups in favour of people who are excluded and in poverty, looking to restoring their dignity as persons and working for their rights to be respected which, as such, they are entitled to; new gestures of solidarity, citizenship and commitment are emerging and not a few people (Christian and non-Christian) contribute day after day to the common good.[4]
From Malaga, and as the new Claretian Province of Fatima, we are beginning a new path that, while still in nappies, is one full of illusion and dreams. We have started a new experience on the southern border, working in network, with the diocese of Malaga and with other organizations and NGOs in the world of immigration. I count on your support and prayer.
Jose Antonio Benitez Pineda, cmf
[1]Oxfam-Intermon, an economy at the service of the 1%, January 2016. Https://oxfamintermon.s3.amazonaws.com/sites/default/files/documentos/files/economia-para-minoria-informe.pdf
[2] TheClaretian Missionaries – ECLA: Vision of the future of the Congregation in Europe, 2015
[3] European Claretian Missionary.Encounter Conclusions. 2013
[4]Ibid.
