“THE SCALABRINIAN SISTERS HELP US TO HAVE A PASTORAL LOOK AT THE PEOPLE THAT ARE ENVOLVED IN THE MOBILITY”

In this way expressed the Bishop himself, who has welcome the Scalabrinian Sisters arrived at the Archdioceses (today dioceses) of Santo Domingo in giving the begin to the Pastoral of the Human Mobility in the area of San Pedro de Marcoris.

This Mission began with the blessing of God, meanwhile the Sisters, in becoming “migrants with the migrants”, they didn’t only emigrate to a foreign country, they have also been forced, for the total of eight months to live in the homes of other people, waiting for finding a home where to open the suitcase and to start their missionary activity.

 But they knew how to make good use of this hard reality and rather difficult for strengthening the personal perseverance as also the tenacity in favour to a mission whenever urgent in this reality characterized be the Haitian immigration, attracted by the hope of a work in the plantations of sugar cane, from the emigration in direction of the United States and Europe and by the intense tourism.

The pastoral work started among the Haitian immigrants because they revealed to be the most in need. After various contacts with the population and the interested institutions regarding the immigration, the Sisters committed themselves in favour of them, overall in the assistance for the sick people, in the catechism, in the registration of the children, in the documentation of the adults, in the organization of the communities and in the liturgical celebrations.

The time has showed that beyond the direct work, it was also necessary to sacrifice oneself until the “Haitian farm workers, black, dirty and miseries” would be recognized and guided in the pastoral way as immigrants and so as being part of the group in which Jesus presents himself as a foreigner.

For the accomplishment of this kind of objective, it was necessary to teach using the example to recognize, love and serve Jesus in the person of the immigrant and to take responsibility of his/her greatest difficulties: illnesses, lack of documents, labour exploitation and disregard and other situations more.

There is still missing a parallel work with the Dominican people so that they are brought to comprehend with the eye of faith the presence of the Haitian immigrants.

 The formation of the pastoral agents for this area of service in the Church has produced more meaningful steps. The presence of a Sister in the National Institute of the Pastoral has made it possible to reawake the consciousness between the Vicars of the Pastoral of all the Dioceses, so that they are capacitated to see the necessity to complete the area of the Pastoral in its general context with the attention to the reality of the Human Mobility that is still totally unknown.

Also if slowly, the Sisters have seen fruitful their presence and their action as much as the Conference has brought to create the Pastoral of the Human Mobility, appointing also a Bishop to guide it and a Scalabrinian Sister as executive secretary.

After 10 years of work practically in the anonymous, the Bishops have understood that the care pastoral to the different categories of the mobility – migrants, tourists and marines, that are characterizing this country, it is a command of the Universal Church, through the Pontiff Council of the pastoral of the Migrants and of the Episcopal Latin-American Conference – “Celam” and the Secretariat of the Pastoral of the Human Mobility – SEPMOV. The role of SEPMOV is meaningful because has asked the Scalabrinian Sisters to begin and to accompany this Pastoral in the Dominican Church and also because it gave support to all the activities that belong to them and all the activities of the National Commission of the Human Mobility Pastoral after its constitution.

Actually the Pastoral of the Human Mobility is recognized in all the Dioceses and it is included in the Pastoral Plan of each one of these, as also in the National Pastoral Plan.

The Scalabrinaian Sisters are identified from the start of their missionary action, as “Sisters of the Migrants” or “Sisters of the Mobility”.

One of the actual challenges of the Pastoral of the Human Mobility is that of the Dominican emigration, especially for what concerns the woman, that is often involved in the trade of prostitution. And this is a reality that is continuing to increase and that calls implicitly the intervention of Heaven and that requires to be exterminated in the country, and requires the union of efforts of all the civil institutions and of the different Churches.

 The tourism also being a source of a very meaningful income and an appreciable cultural exchange, doesn’t stop to be a great pastoral preoccupation because it is an authentic threat for the human and Christian values of the Dominican people.

(Sister Albertina Pauletti, mscs)