The Church and Emigrant Families

Abstract

Many papal documents bear witness to the fact that the Church feels to be obliged to a particular care about emigrant families, which being under conditions of migration are subject to different kinds of difficulties and dangers. The Church fulfils its mission in that domain by teaching and shaping of consciences, by the activity in defense of emigrants' laws, and by the pastoral care of families.

Any Church activity tends to secure the unity of marriage and emigrant family, to internally reintegrate emigrant families under the new socio-cultural conditions, and to develop their cultural identity. The Church also tends to the social and religious integration of emigrant families in the local society.

The pastoral care is focused on the religious vocation of the emigrant family which should be a „home church”. The pastors' task is to develop the subjectivity of the family, so that it could fulfil properly its fundamental functions. A special care should be provided for those families which live in untypical situations, such as: ethnic marriages and religious intermarriages separated families, families stricken with sickness or afflicted with a habit of alcoholism.