We receive and publish from Pierre Diarra, theologian, administrator of “Aide aux Eglises d’Afrique”, Consultor of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue
How fortunate a person is to be able to choose to migrate or stay at home! Do Africans who put their lives at risk trying to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean choose to migrate or to stay? Do they really have a choice?
Often crammed into makeshift craft or boats in poor condition, migrants do not always realize that they are putting their lives at risk. Political, economic and religious leaders in Africa and Europe don’t always dare answer the question: why are so many young people risking their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean?
People who leave their country often do so against their will. They flee a country at war, unemployment, distress or poverty, in an attempt to “save their skin” or improve their living conditions. For many “would-be migrants”, their lives are meaningless if they continue to live the way they do. Life is so precious that it’s better to try to improve its conditions, even if it means putting them at risk. Am I justifying the risk taken by “would-be migrants”? No, I’m trying to understand.
In Marseilles on Saturday, September 23, 2023, the Pope stated that the Mediterranean “bears within itself a worldwide vocation to fraternity, a unique vocation and the only way to prevent and overcome conflicts”. This sea must “once again become a laboratory of peace. For this is its vocation: to be a place where different countries and realities meet on the basis of the humanity we all share, and not of ideologies that set us against each other”. These migrants arriving in Europe are “brothers whose history we must know, not troublesome problems, expelling them, sending them home; it’s about welcoming them, not hiding them; integrating them, not getting rid of them; giving them dignity. And Marseille, I repeat, is the capital of the integration of peoples. It’s your pride and joy.”
And the Pope evokes the problems of injustice, of “shores where, on the one hand, opulence, consumerism and waste reign, and, on the other, poverty and precariousness”.
How can we let ourselves be challenged to fight against injustice, the problems of developing countries, political instability and insecurity? The gulf between Africa and Europe is not the only one; rich and poor cohabit in African countries too.
The duty of solidarity and that of social justice are added to and clarified by the duty of universal charity. Refugees and migrants from all walks of life are often driven from their homelands by persecution or lack of basic necessities. They are forced to abandon their homeland, their loved ones, to go to a foreign land.
On the other side of the border or borders live brothers and sisters. Our world needs fraternity, sharing, hope, and intercultural and inter-religious dialogue. This dialogue must consider the value of secularism. “Let brotherly love remain. Do not forget hospitality…” (Heb 13, 1-2). We are invited not only to welcome, but also to support small ecclesial structures, associations that help various people to live better, by training them, assisting the hungry and thirsty, foreigners and the sick, prisoners – in short, people in need (Mt 25, 44-45). This is what “Aide aux Églises d’Afrique” is trying to do, thanks to your donations.
Thank you for your commitment.
Epiphany collection
The aim of the Epiphany collection is “to promote and develop all assistance and charitable activities in favor of the Catholic Church in Africa”.
In 2023, 224 dioceses in 28 African countries benefited from the Epiphany collection shared by all dioceses in France. This collection is managed and distributed by the association “Aide aux Églises d’Afrique”.