Conclusion

The pastoral sensitivity of Bishop Scalabrini leads him to sense the importance and the political, social and religious complexity of migrations in modern societies, to analyze their causes and to start a series of concrete projects aimed at their protection and constructive management. A deep feeling of Christian charity inspires the Bishop’s action together with the search of a new way through which Italian Catholics could play a public role as protagonists in the field of social concerns, and eventually in politics, since their commitment to migrations touched on an issue of national and humanitarian interest. Above all the preservation of the faith of the migrants prompts Bishop Scalabrini into action and in his approach he embraces the entire person with its physical and spiritual needs. While step by step he shapes and concretizes his vision, Bishop Scalabrini initiates a Church plan of care for migrants that reaches an international dimension of coordination that in time will prove ever more necessary. But he focuses on the first phase of the migratory process, the moment of uprootedness and initial settlement so that the role of the States and of the Church in the country of arrival, the process of integration and the interplay of culture, nationality, religion and society of welcome remain less developed. His social thought, however, is articulated with adherence to reality and with a wealth of insights that served the systematic development of sociological reflection on migrations and to the pastoral action of the whole Church, thus making indeed Bishop Scalabrini the man who had “the insight into future events.”

Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, c.s.

Apostolic Nuncio to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibuti