Migration offers opportunity for growth, mission, say speakers in Rome

Migration offers opportunity for growth, mission, say speakers in Rome

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ROME (CNS) -- While migration brings struggles for the migrant and the host country, in the long term it provides opportunities for stability, cultural enrichment and religious growth, said speakers at a Rome event sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See. U.S. Ambassador Miguel H. Diaz, a Cuban-born theologian, told the audience that while balancing humanitarian and legal concerns is a challenge for modern states dealing with migration, "by finding ways to integrate migrants, communities can become stronger than before. The experience of migration can be an opportunity to embrace positively human diversity." The ambassador led a panel discussion, "Building Bridges of Opportunity: Migration and Diversity" March 8 at the Pontifical North American College; the discussion brought together Vatican officials, experts on migration, other ambassadors, students, priests, religious and people working with immigrants. Diaz opened the discussion by commenting on the biblical story of Abraham and Sarah welcoming three strangers, who turned out to be God's messengers. The story, he said, "suggests the challenges and opportunities that come with encountering strangers and the ethical responsibility to share life-sustaining resources." Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican observer at U.N. agencies in Geneva and at the International Organization for Migration, told the conference, "The church sees migration as a resource for development, a positive phenomenon. "In the long experience of the church, migrants are a contribution (to society); they bring something positive, constructive, even though they take the dirty and difficult and dangerous jobs in society, they bring themselves, their tradition, their identity" to a new land.

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Source: http://www.georgiabulletin.org/world/2012/03/08/news-6/?s=

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