MEP Corina Cretu and Daciana Sarbu (PES) and Sebastian Bodu and Marian-Jean Marinescu (EPP-ED) on Wednesday afternoon were welcomed by Pope Benedict XVI in a general audience, where the four thanked the pope for his hospitality and the position of the Catholic Church of Rome on Romanian immigrants in Italy and Western Europe.
At the meeting that took place in the San Pietro Piazza of Vatican, the four Romanian MEPs gave the Pope a religious icon and an album of Romanian monasteries, extending condolences for the victims of the Abruzzo earthquake and solidarity with the Italian people.
'This was a highly important and significant meeting. We managed to talk to His Holiness and we thanked him for the efforts of the Catholic Church in favour of the Romanian religious community and for keeping harmony in Italy,' Cretu told, while her colleague Sarbu said she was very excited about the meeting.
In a letter handed in to the Pope, the four MEPs indicate that the problem of expatriates and immigrants is of dramatic topicality in contemporary Europe. 'Our continent is the subject of internal dynamics and the target of a flow from outside Europe.
The magnitude of this phenomenon has determined EU authorities and institutions to tackle the issue urgently and in a comprehensive manner.
We, the Romanian MEPs, believe that in constructing a common immigration policy Europe cannot do without the hospitality and assistance of the Catholic Church, other churches and religious communities. We have a duty to remember that immigrants are not firstly a problem, but a resource, and that their rights, freedoms and human needs cannot be ever ignored for economic or political reasons.
To Europe, immigrants can provide an opportunity for it to prove it believes in its traditional values of Christian extraction: hospitality, care and generosity.'
The four Romanian politicians also met Monsignor Dominique Mamberti in the Vatican who is secretary for relations with the states, and Monsignor Agostino Marchetto, the secretary of the Pontifical Council of the Pastoral for Migrants and Travellers.
Romania's ambassador with the Vatican Marius Lazurca told that besides the favourable stance of the Catholic Church on the Romanian community, which it has defended in all occasions, the Vatican is very interested in as close a dialogue as possible with the European Parliament and the MEP groups and the Romanian MEPs to be elected for the next five -year tenure should continue to attach attention to the relationship with the papal state.
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