MEETING IN BONN 16TH TO 17TH OF JULY 20009

“SERVICE OF EUROPEAN CHURCHES FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS” (SECIS)

Message of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People to the members of SECIS gathered for their Annual Meeting in Bonn, July 2009

        
Dear Friends,

    I am pleased to send cordial greetings to you all as you assemble in Germany for the Annual Meeting of SECIS.  I thank the offices of KAAD who are not only your hosts this year but have a long and continued history of supporting foreign students.

    The topic that you have chosen for your discussions and deliberations under the title “Foreign students: gift or commodity?” is an increasingly important one.  In fact, it was a subject about which we have been much concerned in recent years.

    Nowadays student mobility is on the increase.  Today there are globally more than three million young men and women on the move with a vast competition between universities and academic institutions of tertiary education.  In Europe alone there are over 1.2 million of them with now 600,000 studying outside the continent.  Scholarships and exchange schemes, now with over 150,000 students, are set to double over the next decade. Student mobility has now firmly become part of the normal university milieu and by 2020 up to 20% of all students will regularly expect to spend part of their period of study in another country. Ambitious reforms are underway through the “Bologna Process” in the creation of a ‘European Higher Education Area’ by 2010 through a convergent system of levels of study programmes and degrees together with political efforts to stimulate competition and to attract a greater mobility, intra and extra. Reputations, academic influence and not least, financial benefits are all at stake. There is fierce intercontinental and continental rivalry in what many regard as a ‘commercialization’ which can often fail to recognise the dignity of the human person when they become economic statistics in a global market place. This is particularly so in the areas of research which can bring profits on both a national and international scale. Today universities are seeking the best minds, not simply to educate but also to survive and develop.  To some extent this has always been so, but in our present climate it is important for these institutions to always keep in mind the true purpose of research, learning and teaching.  Whilst there is no doubt that without the necessary financial backing many universities cannot develop, let alone survive, there is a real danger today that education and the students themselves can be reduced to mere economic commodities.

    Your work is especially attuned to the European situation.  There are already excellent programmes in place throughout the continent and to be commended is the on-going development of exchanges such as Socrates and Erasmus. The sharing of education and fees throughout the European Union has been one of the excellent areas of growth in higher education.  However, many universities are consciously looking beyond the boarders of the continent in order to recruit not just the finest minds but also those who are willing to pay “full” fees, especially looking towards students from North America, China and Asia. In addition, the current global financial crisis has already begun to put pressure on the student mobility market, the effects of which - you are concerned with their pastoral care - will already be aware, bringing its own set of pastoral problems.

Clearly at the forefront must always be considered the dignity of the student, but also their potential in doing well not only in their host country, but also in their country of origin on their eventual return. Pope Benedict XVI himself has said: “Moreover, for many young people the possibility of studying abroad is a unique opportunity to become better able to contribute to the development of their own countries and participate actively in the Church’s mission”.

The more Europe opens up and expands its education market the more foreign students fall prey to be part of what is now well known as the ‘brain-drain’ from their country of origin. Our Instruction Erga migrantes caritas Christi speaks clearly of the commitment needed when it attests: “migration raises a truly ethical question: the search for a new international economic order for a more equitable distribution of the goods of the earth. This would make a real contribution in reducing and checking the flow of a large number of migrants from populations in difficulty. From this follows the need for a more effective commitment to educational and pastoral systems that form people in a ‘global dimension’, that is, a new vision of the world community, considered as a family of peoples, for whom the goods of the earth are ultimately destined when things are seen from the perspective of the universal common good.”

Consequently, the Pastoral care of welcoming, assisting, together with the human and spiritual support offered by chaplains, pastoral agents and all those concerned with foreign students welfare is of the utmost importance.

I hope that you will also use this opportunity, whilst gathered together, to look at and explore new ways to expand your work so as to keep this specific pastoral care directed towards foreign students alive in the hearts and minds of all those who have concern for these young people at university during this particularly formative part of their lives.  As higher education expands it is important that this category of students would not be forgotten.

    Lastly in this year, which has been dedicated to St. Paul, Pope Benedict in his annual Message for the World Day for Migrants and Refugees celebrated on 18th January meditated upon St Paul as a migrant and an Apostle to the Peoples because “His [St Paul’s] life and his preaching were wholly directed to making Jesus known and loved by all, for all persons are called to become a single people in Him. This is the mission of the Church and of every baptized person in our time too, even in the era of globalization; a mission that with attentive pastoral solicitude is also directed to the variegated universe of migrants”. Among this group, of course, he included “students far from home”.

As you embark upon your meeting, be assured of our prayers and good wishes. I am confident that your discussions will help and support this pastoral concern to which you are all directed, and that aided by the prayers of Our Lady of Europe and St Paul, the Lord will bless you abundantly in all that you do.

✚ Antonio Maria Vegliò
President

✚ Archbishop Agostino Marchetto,
 Secretary

From the Vatican, July 2009

NOMINA DEL SOTTO-SEGRETARIO DEL PONTIFICIO CONSIGLIO DELLA PASTORALE PER I MIGRANTI E GLI ITINERANTI

Il Santo Padre, in data 28 giugno 2007, ha nominato “ad quinquennium” Sotto-Segretario del nostro Pontificio Consiglio, il Reverendo Mgr. Novatus Rugambwa, Consigliere della Nunziatura Apostolica in Indonesia.

In his remarks, Msgr. Rugambwa considered the position of students who emigrate, highlighting how in his Message the Pope presents them "as a gift for man and for the Church: they bring with them the great resources of their youth, and must be open and receptive to new ideas and experiences while, at the same time, capable of remaining anchored in the truth."

   "As the Holy Father says," indicated Msgr. Rugambwa, "these young people, must not only increase their openness to the dynamism of inculturation, but also seek opportunities for dialogue between cultures and religions, ... thus they will experience the universality of the Church."

REPORT OF SECIS 2009 MEETING IN BONN

1.Participants:

Austria:    (AAI)    Josef Erbler
Belgium    (FENACA)    Canon Charles de Hemptinne
Germany:    (Prot. Kirche)    Johann Schneider
Germany:    (KAAD)    HermannWeber     
The Netherlands    (ISC)    Father Avin Kunnekkadan
Vatican: (Observer Pontif. Counci)    Fr. Jeremy Fairhead

2.Excused:
Italy:     (UCSEI)    (Nazareno Scarabotto)
Poland (Jean-Paul II Foundation)    Dom Jana Pawla
Switzerland: (Justinuswerk)    Marco Cattaneo
3.Countries where no successor has been nominated yet!
France:    XXX    XXX
Portugal:    (???)    Edgar and Linda
Spain:    (Del Agua !?)    XXX
U.K.    (Sr. Teresa Kennedy !?)    XXX

4.Short administrative report of the Bonn meeting:
Discharge has unanimously been given to the board for the account 2008.
The budget for 2009 has also been agreed unanimously.
Next General Assembly in Namur (Belgium) from 8 to 10 of July 20107 :
Proposed Topic for next SECIS meeting: “Language of faith - language of science: how to present the message of the Gospel on a more intelligible way for modern student’s brain”?     

POINTS TO BE DISCUSSED IN NEXT BOARD MEETING
IN BRUSSELS

Renewed contacts for nominations of missing members for France, UK, Spain, Portugal, etc. 
Contacts as well with new countries as Ukraine, for instance… etc.   
The future of ‘AUGUSTINUS’ and that of the ‘internet-site’ of SECIS.
Next year: election of a new SECIS chairman, as CdH comes at the end of his mandate after 10 years (1999)!

The SECIS board: chairman and treasurer

DONS à L’AUMÔNERIE – FENACA
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Met oprechte dank voor uw welwillende steun.
Avec nos sincères remerciements pour votre appui.

Les Centres et les Maisons d’accueil pour étudiants étrangers, membres de la FENACA et reconnus par le Ministère de la Coopération Belge ont bien sûr comme but essentiel de faciliter les études des étudiants venant des pays pauvres et de les aider à devenir à leur tour des agents de développement compétents dans leur pays.