PANAJI
Claiming that all people are migrants on this earth, Archbishop of Goa and Daman Filipe Neri Ferrão has appealed to the Catholic community to include all and help the society and the Church to become more inclusive.
In his message to the Catholic community on the occasion of the World Day of Migrants and Refugees which is celebrated by the Church on the last Sunday of September, Archbishop Ferrão made mention of all Goans who have migrated to other states of India and to several other countries throughout the world, as well as people who have immigrated into Goa.
“Our real home is heaven. All of us are migrants on this earth. Various factors motivate or even compel us to move to a different land in order to make our living.”
“Many of those who move away from their birthplace, particularly the poor, face innumerable hardships, created generally by the natives of the land they have moved to,” stated Archbishop Ferrão.
“It is in this context that I would like to say, with Pope Francis, that we can no longer think in terms of ‘them’ and ‘those,’ but only ‘us,’ so that we can work Towards An Ever Wider “We”,” he said, referring to Pope Francis’ Message for the Day “Towards An Ever Wider “We”.”
“In the world and within the Church, the We “is crumbling and cracking due to myopic and aggressive forms of nationalism and radical individualism. The victims of this are “those who most easily become viewed as others,” those who live on the peripheries and the marginalized, including migrants and refugees.”
“As the Pope rightly says, “we are all in the same boat and called to work together so that there will be no more walls that separate us, no longer others, but only a single ‘we’, encompassing all of humanity”,” stated Archbishop Ferrão.
He appealed to people to work, “each in our society and in our community, to include all and help the society and our Church become more inclusive.”
“Let us ensure that no human being is left behind or left out from our We, for we are “called to dream together, fearlessly, as a single human family, as companions on the same journey, as sons and daughters of the same earth that is our common home, sisters and brothers all,” he added.
