Archbishop Antonio Maria Veglio, President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, explained that the Pope’s message will be divided into three parts dealing with each migrant group: migrant workers, refugees and international students.
“Faced with this challenge, the Church is impelled to reconsider her methods, forms of expression and language, so as to renew her missionary efforts,” said Archbishop Veglio, adding that a “new” evangelization “does not affect the contents and the value of the missionary mandate, as handed down by Holy Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium.”
The latest figures show that in 2009 there were 38.5 million immigrants to the U.S. In terms of country of origin, a third arrive from Mexico, followed by the Philippines, India, China, El Salvador and Vietnam.
While recognizing the opportunities for evangelization, the Pope also notes that migration can sometimes undermine the faith of Catholics. This is particularly true, he says, when the Catholic migrant worker move to parts of the world where efforts to “efface God and the Church’s teaching from the horizon of life” are taking place.
“Having grown up among peoples characterised by their Christian faith they often emigrate to countries in which Christians are a minority or where the ancient tradition of faith, no longer a personal conviction or a community religion, has been reduced to a cultural fact,” says the Pope.
In response, the Church needs to help migrants “keep their faith firm” even when they are deprived of its previous cultural support. The Church must also find “new pastoral approaches” for the “ever vital reception of the Word of God,” the Pope writes.