Help unemployed migrant workers, Shanghai bishop urges

SHANGHAI, China (UCAN) -- The Church in Shanghai, China's financial center, will make it a priority to reach out to unemployed migrant workers this year, says Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian of Shanghai.

Shanghai municipality, home to 22 million people, has more than 10 million migrant workers from other provinces.

The 92-year-old Jesuit prelate in his Lenten pastoral letter noted that these people have no local residential permits and cannot organize themselves because of their transitory nature.

The city has thousands of skyscrapers built from the "perspiration of migrant workers," he said in the document. After they complete a building, "the white-collar employees, the middle class and intellectuals then move in while the workers pick up their belongings and head for another construction site."

Bishop Jin accused some businesspeople of spending lavishly on meals or bribes but not paying their migrant workers wages.

He urged Catholics not to "turn a blind eye and a deaf ear" to the workers, and called on priests and nuns to organize Catholics to take action in their neighborhoods. After getting to know the number of unemployed migrants, they should come up with an action plan, and then in small groups visit the affected workers to get to know their grievances and urgent needs.

He also asked Church workers to be patient and attentive, noting some migrant workers may refuse to talk to them. "We should open their hearts with our love," he urged. During home visits, priests may even find Catholics among migrant workers who might want to continue their faith life after leaving their hometown, he added.

He reminded Catholics that evangelization is not the main objective of the home visits. Rather, it is to strengthen the migrant workers' self-confidence, encourage them to make efforts to improve themselves, and remind them to keep off excessive drinking and gambling.

Bishop Jin also asked parishes to provide opportunities for unemployed people to learn and improve skills so that they might have more chances of finding jobs. Each parish should also have a library with newspapers, magazines and books for people to borrow, he added.

Once migrant workers are familiar with Church people, they may ask about the meaning and value of life and the afterlife. "Then we can share Jesus' words and deeds and give them the New Testament and other books on the Catholic faith."

According to media reports, there are now about 20 million unemployed domestic migrant workers nationwide. The problem is worsening because of the global financial crisis.