editorial
Everyone
is invited
to migrate
Hubertus Blaumeiser
This issue of Ekklesía is being published at a time when the topic of migrants is even more intensely at the forefront than ever before. The figures reported by humanitarian organizations for 2024 are staggering: 120 million forcibly displaced migrants due to armed conflicts, persecution, and violence, in addition to another 281 million international migrants, which amounts to 3.6 percent of the global population. This is a tragedy we cannot close our eyes to.
In fact, we had planned to address this topic even before the recent escalation of events and the increasing polarization of positions. We wanted very much to offer fundamental reflections and first-hand experiences that could help us approach this phenomenon—or more precisely, these people, and more rightly still, these brothers and sisters of ours—with a gaze that is less superficial, more objective, and more evangelical. A gaze, too, that resists the temptation to reduce everything to the issue of the security of receiving countries.
Therefore, we will try to offer insights from multiple perspectives: biblical and historical, sociological and ecclesial, but above all to give voice to those who experience the causes of migration at first hand, and to those who try to respond with an attitude of openness and welcome.
Migrations, as they currently present themselves, undoubtedly involve issues that are not easy to address, and this should lead us to reflect seriously on the underlying causes, which, from various perspectives, represent a deficit of sharing and genuine fraternity. Acknowledging this—without trivializing it—it is still possible to see migration, and to live it, also as an opportunity: a chance to broaden our horizons and expand our hearts, as a urging to go beyond what is familiar and already acquired, an invitation to be enriched by the other in their diversity.
Today, we observe that parishes in large urban centers of the secularized West are regaining new vitality thanks to the presence of migrants from other continents. As a result, they now display a more catholic face—in the original sense of the word: a model of universality and unity in diversity. Migration also brings about a stronger presence of various Churches in local territories. In this way, we can see, for example, how Italy has become a much more ecumenical country. Even in small towns, we now find Orthodox communities, free Churches, and Pentecostal congregations—not to mention the presence of other religions, which we are called to understand beyond superficial prejudices and with which we are invited to establish dialogue.
Behind all this lies a deeper dimension. In truth, all of us are all called to "migrate" each day: from the self to the you and the we—not a selfish, closed-off we, but one that is open—ever more open—to you and them, without setting up borders. This implies welcoming and integrating the values and culture of the other into our own lives. And we are called to do this not only individually, but also collectively, culturally, and ultimately politically—as peoples.
In this, all of us—including politicians—are confronted with matters of conscience that cannot be resolved merely by allegiance to one political party or another. It is said that a well-known government official once caused a turning point in an international meeting simply by asking a colleague: “If you were in his [another head of government’s] position, what would you do?”
A shift like that can occur on a political and global level only if it first happens each day in more and more individuals—until it generates a new mindset, a new way of life, a culture of encounter. As Christian communities—and, more broadly, as religious traditions—we are called to play a proactive, catalytic role in this process, overcoming barriers that have sometimes become deeply rooted over centuries.
This issue of Ekklesía offers some examples in this direction: from a parish in the middle of London, to an inclusive pastoral experience with migrants in Texas; from the witness of a Lutheran bishop who immersed himself in the wounds of his time, to the dramatic life of a parish priest in Goma.
The ultimate horizon is not just that of encounter between individuals, cultures, and peoples, or of ever-greater sharing, but of allowing ourselves to be drawn into the story of a God of Communion who, in Jesus, chose to migrate to earth—to share our life, to take on our hardships, and to call us in turn to migrate: toward one another and together toward the heavenly homeland, as brothers and sisters, pilgrims of hope.