Archbishop Worries About Catholic Migrants In A Changing World

The archbishop of Colombo has expressed concern about the negative effects migrant work is having on Catholic families.

Archbishop Oswald Gomis and priests in a procession to the National Basilica of Our Lady of Lanka on Jan. 2, in Colombo.

Speaking to a crowd of 3,000 on the Jan. 2 Feast of Blessings, Archbishop Oswald Gomis acknowledged many parents have gone abroad to work and save for the future. This was the 25th year the Basilica of Our Lady of Lanka in Tewatte, on the northeast outskirts of Colombo, celebrated the feast for blessing labor, tools and machinery.

“By simply living for some years in those countries, some have lost the cultural traditions and spiritual traditions of Sri Lanka,” he said, expressing concern for a loss of family values and decline in sexual mores.

“Your aim for your families and your children should be not only to earn for them but also to give them virtuous and righteous guidance, and bring them closer to God,” he told the crowd.

“Are you looking for spiritual prosperity for your children, or educational prosperity or economical prosperity?” he asked. “Saving for your children is good, but the aims given to your children must be very clear: for them to strive to be good people so that they grow in wisdom and stature.”

Church sources say many of the 1.3 million Sri Lankan migrants working overseas, mainly in the Middle East and Europe, are Catholics and some families of migrant-worker parents have had serious problems.

Nilantha Dias, who came with 25 pilgrims from St. Joseph´s Church in Wennappuwa, in neighboring Chilaw diocese, told UCA News: “Over 7,000 have migrated from my village, one from each family, and already some of them have divorced. Even my elder sister [who went abroad] has divorced, and her children have stopped their education.”

According to him, his sister dresses immodestly when she goes to church and never prays with her children at home. “Traditional family values are declining, elderly people are being abandoned, and there is no shyness to wear half-naked dress to church,” 24-year-old Dias lamented while preparing the offertory gifts at the Mass. Even his girlfriend was working abroad, in Italy, he grumbled.

The local Church offers migrant-oriented services such as skills training, awareness raising on legal matters, and aid for families.

For example, the Kandy diocesan branch of Caritas, the Church´s social-service organization, has been trying to help migrants not fall foul of the law abroad. It held a program on International Migrants Day, Dec. 18, at its center to make sure prospective migrants and their families are aware of the dangers of employment abroad, including the need to follow local laws.

Amid charges that migrant workers are tricked out of their wages, and physically and mentally abused, a steady stream of bodies arriving back home lends credence to charges that some are even killed.

Last year, 203 bodies arrived back in Sri Lanka, 131 of them female. Five years ago, in 2003, the number was 213. Most cases are simply categorized as “natural deaths.” Only a few are listed as suicides, homicides or accidents.

One family at the Kandy event reported being told their daughter had hanged herself while she was working in Lebanon as a maid. They had borrowed money to try to find out the truth.

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