International Migration as an Opportunity for Interculturality: Pastoral Contributions and Challenges in. Intercultural Perspective

The governance and the studies on international migration challenge scholars of the issue, agents working with migrants and refugees, the subjects on the move themselves and, especially, leaders of institutions that interface with the phenomena related to people on the move. The situations considered as migratory emergencies multiply, while efforts to understand migrations as a structural phenomenon of humanity and an opportunity for the peoples and the individuals who integrate the flows are still scarce. This article is an attempt of a theological and pastoral reflection, inspired by interculturality as a category for reading and analyzing the challenges and possibilities that international migrations offer and demand from their actors. Based on some texts by Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010), interculturality is understood as a thought and as a praxis that focuses on the quality of coexistence between people of different cultures and religions.