Church in the World

African cardinal offers Europeans a lesson on immigration

Ghanaian Cardinal and head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Peter Turkson, last week threw down a challenge to Europeans anxious about high levels of immigration.

He said that concern on the part of people who felt their way of life was under threat was understandable, but it was important to bear in mind that if a civilisation is to be sustainable, then the population has to be prepared to replace itself by raising children.

“The basic reality is that there’s no way at present to ensure an increase in the native population because the demographic index in Europe is falling woefully below replacement level,” Cardinal Turkson, speaking in Rome, told the Kansas City-based National Catholic Reporter.

Cardinal Turkson took over justice and peace last month from Cardinal Renato Martino. His dicastery does not cover immigration issues per se, which fall under the jurisdiction of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, led by Archbishop Antonio Maria Vegliò, but his justice and peace remit can be read as open-ended enough to cover questions about the social environment in which ­immigration takes place.

Those who felt their culture and way of life was threatened by “droves of new people coming in”, the cardinal said, were likely to ask such questions as “Will there be Italy tomorrow? Are we going to have Italo-Turks, Italo-Arabs, Italo-Africans, or whatever?”.

But Europe could not “have its cake and eat it too”, he went on. “You can’t have a popu­lation that’s unwilling to bring forth children, because you want to be comfortable and have your vacation and so on, and at the same time worry about someone else taking over.”

Insisting that the Church has a message of compassion towards immigrants, and a lot of its apostolate is to ensure their rights, the cardinal said there was also an onus of responsibility on immigrant communities to integrate: “I’ve gone to some Ghanaian communities here in Rome to encourage them to do the type of thing that shows they are ready to integrate. They need to learn the language, to appreciate the culture.”

Ultimately, however, Italy – and by implication, other European countries – will be a host country only as long as “Italy itself” exists. “That means the demographic index cannot fall below a certain percentage,” the cardinal pointed out. “If it does, its civilisation is not sustainable … It’s in the interests of the immigrants that the host countries continue to exist. I don’t think it’s the aim of any of these guys coming in to take over.”

The cardinal added that racism was still a problem in the world, and this would affect the work of a future black pope. “Our world today is too colour-sensitive,” he said. “When it comes to a black pope, a lot of people say [race] doesn’t matter, but the truth is that it would matter a lot ... I wouldn’t want to be that first black pope,” he said. “I think he’ll have a rough time.”