JPIC_en – Page 22 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

A History made of Names

18 February, 2018 by Alberto de la Portilla

The work we are doing as Comboni Missionaries and Comboni Lay Missionaries in the concrete situation of migration is essentially accomplished by networking with associations, organizations and movements, both ecclesial and social, involved in this area in recognizing and defending the rights of immigrants and refugees.

Since September 2013, the port of Palermo, Sicily, has become part of the line of Mediterranean landing spots where migrants from Africa and other parts arrive. At their arrival we are present to give out kits of clothing, shoes, a bag with a sandwich, an apple and a bottle of water, trying to establish a contact with the new arrivals. We don’t want to be simply a material presence, but we also try to collect information on how people arriving are treated, since they are already burdened by indescribable experiences suffered before or during the journey, and they are totally clueless about what expects them in Italy.

Together with the living, unfortunately, on many occasions, the bodies of those who died at sea have also arrived. From the very beginning, our concern has been to follow these bodies up to a dignified burial in the cemetery of Palermo.

Every year in November, on All Souls Day, civil society joins the representatives of various religions for an interreligious service in their memory. It is an act of solidarity with the victims to denounce the causes of their death, among them the disgusting agreements of Italy, and behind Italy, of Europe with Libya, and other third parties that work to block or reject migrants.

We recognize the spreading of a culture of exclusion. Today, people feel free of any social responsibility, any tie with others, any common objective. It is urgent to focus again on the stories and the lives of migrants in order to stand up to racism and xenophobia, that are based on false assumptions and on information controlled and manipulated by the media. Through activities we promote in schools and in parishes, we present the stories of migrants by retracing the various phases of their journeys: the reasons why they left, their stay in Libya which upends their lives forever, crossing the Mediterranean and their arrival in Italy, where they end up being mere numbers. To go beyond the lies, to recognize and defend the rights of migrants as persons, are all very important steps in the building of an inter-cultural and multi-cultural society.

In cooperation with civic and church organizations we share lodging spaces for the migrants, and welcoming projects with the idea to produce grassroots meetings and a relation with the territory. In the accepting process there are critical stages tied above all to the excessive time they remain in centers of first acceptance and to the small number of special structures or places in the SPRAR. In many cases, the insertions of migrants turns into a veritable “lottery.” To reflect on the migrants means to rethink our social, political and ecclesial structures. It means to have the courage to change the current order of things.

Finally, the constant element of our presence is the prophetic denunciation of people and institutions who speculate on the hopelessness of the migrants, exploiting their labor, or of those, in the political underbrush, who end up grabbing funds destined for the arrival process.

Calvin wrote, “Any time you build a wall, think of what you leave outside.” What today looks like a protective structure, tomorrow could become a prison. Life develops and grows beyond the wall. But, if fear is contagious, so are courage and hope.
Fr. Domenico Guarino

Palermo, February 2018

Report of the pacific march held by Christians in Kinshasa 21-01-2018

30 January, 2018 by Alberto de la Portilla

In Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the peaceful march of the Christians was organized on January 19^th by the coordinating committee of the catholic laity, for Sunday, January 21st, 2018. By this march, we demanded the government the unfailing application of the agreement of New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2016 as well as the respect of the constitution, pledge stability and national cohesion.

On Sunday, January 21, 2018, when we arrived in our parishes, we saw the strong presence of the Rapid Intervention Police (PIR) encircling our parishes. They were numerous and heavily armed.

At the end of Mass around 09:30 or 10, we started our peaceful march, they tried to disperse us from the first steps made in front of the door of our churches using tear gas and a real bullets… There were some wounded, one of the mates died on the floor after receiving two bullets on the breasts. We were on the ground holding Rosaries, Bibles, crucifixes and twigs. 15 minutes later we were standing up to take the wounded to the emergency room. In this huge crowd, facing our executioners, who was able to stand up, dusted our clothes and then continue walking.

There were police roadblocks everywhere at each roadblock, the violence and brutality were stronger, after 45 minutes of walking the police made a barrier in front of us pushing us to turn back, we sang hymns and the priest who was heading the crowd asked the faithful to kneel and pray the Magnificat. In this precise moment, when we all knee on the ground the police began to shoot and throw tear gas in these torrents of smoking they went against the priests, the acolytes and the young people who interfered to this arrest.

And during this time, in our parishes the priests had advised against the participation in walking to people who were very old or weak by illness or other reason as well as children. They were supposed to pray a little while for those who were going to walk and get back home. However, the police imprisoned all these people in the parish; they forcibly closed from the outside all the doors of the parish obliging Christians to stayed in until 13:00. All these weak people have remained more than 6 hours in the enclosure of the parish without water or food.

On the return of the faithful at the parish to close the march, we have found the Christians close in their own parish. When we attempted to break the padlocks set by the police, not only to release those who were in but also to entered and make the final prayer, the policemen started to shoot and abused the youths, there was a great clash for nearly 30 minutes. Then people would run in all directions always under police fire, trying to follow up on those who were arrested, those who were taken home injured, others were wounded and taken to hospitals… The day was restless until 4 pm and after it was cold and anguished, around 7 pm they removed their barriers.

News from Kinshasa

10 January, 20184 January, 2018 by Alberto de la Portilla

We leave here an email from Congo about the current situation in the country.

Good evening Alberto,

I did not follow up on the document I requested and I did not call you back because here the weekend of the 31st it was complicated for the Catholics because of the march of the laity against the political situation of the country.

In our parish during the 6 o’clock mass at which I participated, the soldiers entered the church at 7 am just at the time of the homily. They threw tear gas and put themselves in front of the exits of the church then shot with real ammunition. We were trapped in the church for 30 minutes. Then the priests organize themselves to keep us safe in the sacristy.

Then an hour after the priest took over the mass. We ended around 11am then we started our walk, despite the situation.

At every barrier we passed, the police tried to intimidate us with brutality to try to disperse us. When they got close, we knelt or threw to the floor and sang songs to Maria. They were trying to take part of the people and beat the group. After 45 minutes of walking, two military buses arrived, began firing tear gas and the air became unbearable. The shock was terrible. The priest stood holding the crucifix in his hand. They were heavily armed and they did not flinch. Then we prayed the Magnificat, when we finished the priest turned around and we finished the march in the parish st Charle Lowanga at 13h.

There were several wounded and some dead. I myself am wounded in the legs and therefore in medical rest since Monday.

Thank you for praying for our country, we have hope in you.

Congo — Les manifestants devant la police le 31/12/2017 à Kinshasa lors de la marche initiée par le Comité laïc de coordination (CLC). Radio Okapi/Ph. John Bompengo

Changing the world with New Styles of Life

3 December, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

We, the members of the Comboni Lay Missionaries group of Bologna, have decided on “Outings” to meet the parish communities, to reflect and share on the New Styles of Life.

To share the Head: in order to understand the phenomena that engulf us.

To share the Heart: in order to support the necessity of change both internally and externally.

To share Hands: in order to stimulate activities that any local or parish group can enact.

We feel it is important to start a missionary journey that will help to question a life style which is increasingly consumeristic and individualistic, which fosters more and more social, local and worldwide inequities, besides brutally damaging our common home: the Earth.

The dramatic situation of our planet, mistreated and wounded, and the tragic life conditions of its inhabitants cannot leave us indifferent. This is a cry echoing with increasing strength in our ears and that is present here and now.

It is futile to deny that our current styles of life have produced, and continue to produce, a series of wounds in the environment, in increasing poverty, in miserable situations the world over.

Our choices, our simple daily activities, have planetary repercussions, from what we use and consume, from what we buy, from what we utilize and waste. The world has become one single home where we are all interdependent and responsible for its care. Laudato sii itself encourages us to go beyond individualism and look for alternate styles of life.

Basing ourselves on these premises that guide our will, our faith and our commitment, on Sunday, November 19, on the occasion of the World Day for the Poor, we met at the parish of Christ the King in Bologna to share with the parishioners both a community meal with the “poor” of the city and a time of reflection and sharing on the themes of the New Styles of Life. It was our first “Outing.”

Together with the parishioners we joined Head, Heart, Hands, emotions, reflections and, above all, the desire to commit ourselves and build something “good.”

This shows how important it is to get together to weave relationships that will lead away from the loneliness of impotence, from urban loneliness evermore deprived of gestures of conviviality and “humanity.” One little step at the time, we want to start this missionary journey, without any concern for quantity (Many people? Only a few?), but rather for quality and, above all, for every single person who wants to walk with us, because together we grow, we walk, we share, we create and change. Mission invites us to “Go out,” to be witnesses, but never alone, with Others.

We will keep it up in 2018, trying to meet with other parishes, to build alternative ways born out of solidarity, of getting together, of conviviality that will help the networking of ideas, activities, and groups in a commitment to justice.

As Gandhi used to say: “You be the change you want to see in the world.”

Emma, CLM Bologna

To be here. With them and among them!

28 November, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

We live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Only add that in this place, lost in between the volcanoes Chachani and Misti, there live a humble people with whom now we share our lives.

Along our still early journey, many are the faces that are already imprinted in us. At times it is because the lack of humanity is so evident that, taken to the extreme, it leads to death. We have already heard many stories of violence not only in words, but also through the living witness of those who daily fight for change. Why is it that in this country, Peru, there are some of the highest levels of machismo in the world. In this essay by Manu Tessinari we can come to know this reality more deeply:

“Peru is a country of machismo, a lot of machismo.

In Peru, an adolescent girl may be beaten by her father if she is caught having sexual relations with her boyfriend. Here, an incarcerated woman does not have a right to conjugal visits. In the public health system, it is forbidden to give the “day after” pills to patients who were victims of rape.

Something more absurd? In Peru, if a woman is abandoned by her husband and does not accept divorce, the man can start a new life and register all the children from his new partner. The woman cannot. The law stipulates that the child of this woman legally belongs to the former husband (protected by the bonds of marriage) and a biological father needs to go through a lengthy and complicated legal process to register him.

Out of every 10 Peruvian women, six are victims of psychological violence and two of physical violence at the hands of their partners. About 16% of the people (men and women) believe that the fault is always with the woman, including 3.7% who believe that women DESERVE to be beaten and 3.8% DO NOT see a problem if the man forces relations on his partner.

People are great workers. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Information (INEI), 95.4% of Peruvian women have a job, mostly in the servant sector. On the average, a Peruvian female earns ONE THIRD less than a male doing the same work. Unfortunately, only 36% of females go to school to the end and only a little more than 16% end up concluding university studies. And all this in a country with 15,800,000 women, namely, 49.9% of the population.”

The lives of people going by our door do not leave us indifferent, and even though this is the reality, we bring them the joy of a Gospel which is not only ours, but a Gospel that fiercely demands to be taken into the world, taken to the extreme peripheries of it.

Do not be afraid to go meet these people, these situations. Do not be blocked by prejudice, by habits, by inflexible mental and pastoral attitudes, by the infamous “it has always been done this way.” But we can only go to the peripheries if we hold the Word of God in our hearts and walk with the Church, like St. Francis did. Otherwise, we are just proclaiming ourselves, and not the Word of God, and this is not good and does not benefit anyone. We are not the saviors of the world: The Lord saves it! (Pope Francis)

And here is where we feel called to live with them and among them. Here is where we cease to be ourselves in order to become living instruments at the service of Jesus Christ in Peru.

The Community of Ayilu,

Neuza and Paula, CLM in Peru