An analysis of Benedict XVI’s Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation and the prospects that lie ahead for Mediterranean communities that are facing great hardship.
Speaking of Christians in the Middle East, it is only natural that the word “migration” should immediately evoke images of the drama being experienced by hundreds and thousands of Arabs who have been forced to search for a future far away from their homeland as a result of the discrimination suffered for believing in Jesus. 
But this is only one side of the coin because today there are also a great many Christians who come to the Middle East from further afield. And they are also faced with some extremely serious problems.
The Pope confirmed this in his Apostolic letter “Ecclesia in Medio Oriente”;a document in which Benedict XVI makes an interesting choice: to make the two phenomena communicate. Perhaps in this case too, no better country could have been chosen than Lebanon to show how the combination of the two is not in the least bit strange.
It is a fact that in recent years, Christian youth have been leaving Beirut in their droves and heading for the West. But Lebanon is also home to one million foreign immigrant workers : maids, hotel waiters, gardeners and drivers. Among them are many Catholics from Africa and Asia.
The same thing is true in Israel: There are far more Filipinos, Indians and Sudanese faithful who follow the Latin Rite than Arabs. Not to mention Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States, where the number of foreign Christians (who are only here temporarily and live in very precarious conditions) total a few million.
“These groups, comprising many single men and women or entire families, face insecurity on two fronts – Benedict XVI wrote in “Ecclesia in Medio Oriente” –. They are aliens in the country where they work, and they frequently experience discrimination and injustice.” “God – he added – has a special concern for the foreigner, who thus deserves respect. The way we treat strangers will be taken into account at the Last Judgement.”
These are powerful words addressed primarily to country leaders. But they are also intended for Christian communities themselves. Because internal relations with new arrivals are not always easy: the most common scenario in the Middle East is groups that live parallel lives even within the same parish.
But the Pope’s message to Arab faithful is this: making foreigners feel welcome is your task as well because these people have decided on “a course [that is] at least as heartrending as that of their brothers and sisters in the Middle East who emigrate.”
So they must not be seen as alien to our reality.
Benedict XVI suggests the Middle East should act as a laboratory for a Church in which universality - through globalisation - cannot just remain a abstract idea: “As Pastor of the universal Church, I wish to say a word to all the Catholics of the region, whether native or recently arrived, realizing that in recent years their proportionate numbers have come closer together: for God there is only one people and for believers only one faith! Strive to live in unity and respect, and in fraternal communion with one another in mutual love and esteem, so as to be credible witnesses to your faith in the death and resurrection of Christ!” According to the Pope, therefore, in order for the Middle East to start a new chapter, much depends on its attitude towards “new arrivals”.