The newly established Archdiocesan Commission for Pastoral care of Migrants and Itinerants (ACMI) of Kota Kinabalu has its inaugural gathering on Dec 12, 2020 with the presence of Archbishop John Wong at the Catholic Archdiocesan Center, Taman Hiburan here.
During the gathering, the head of the Archdiocese welcomed the fourteen-member Commission comprising eight former members of the previous Archdiocesan Human Development Commission (AHDC), two former staff of KK Migrant Desk, and four others who have experience in handling migrant issues.
The prelate also officially introduced Fr Ambrose Atang as Spiritual Adviser of ACMI and Dominic Lim as its head. He said even though ACMI is a new Commission in the Archdiocese, pastoral care to migrants has been going on in the local Church since its early days, and was one of the main focuses of AHDC in the past 10 years. However, with the setting up of ACMI, he hoped the pastoral care of migrants and itinerants in the Archdiocese would be more intensified and organized.
The members were then briefed on the guiding principles of ACMI and objectives of Migrant Ministry by Dominic. They also went through the objectives of Parish Migrant Ministry with the aim to assist parishes to set up proper committees to represent the interests of migrants.
The four key words introduced by Pope Francis in his 2018 World Migrant Sunday message, namely “to welcome, to promote, to protect and to integrate” would become the rally points for the works of ACMI and parish migrant ministry. Archbishop John hoped that the experiences of the members in serving the migrants in the past would expediate the mission of ACMI. He expressed his thanks to each of them for their willingness to serve the Church in the migrant ministry.
ACMI will begin its duties with a recollection cum meeting in early January 2021. – By Dominic Lim
Source: CS Online
