I was a stranger and you welcomed me

The pastoral care of non-nationals in any country is a challenge for the local church and are complicated in China by the unusual situation of the Church here. The instinct of the local church to make the stranger welcome and incorporate them into the life of the local parish. This instinct of hospitality and inclusion on the part of the welcoming church does not necessarily correspond with the real needs of the strangers in their midst. The non-nationals often look to the Church to provide an experience of home in an environment that is alien, rather than yearn to engage with the local parish in any depth. The non-nationals themselves are not an homogeneous group and are splintered into sub-groups of nationality, language, length of stay etc. Meeting their pastoral needs is a strain in any circumstances.

In many countries with substantial numbers of non-nationals, local bishops, appreciating the real needs of the stranger among them, delegate the pastoral care of sub-groups to pastoral teams from home countries. There are thriving Polish communities across Europe and the US, served by Polish priests, similarly Filipino priests care for their own nationals wherever they are found in numbers. In an earlier age, the Irish Church dispatched considerable numbers of priests and sisters to care for the Irish diaspora. This process displays the flexibility of a universal Church when faced with groups needing special consideration because of their circumstances.

In China, economic development has brought many non-nationals to the Middle Kingdom. This is an unprecedented pastoral situation for the Chinese Church, a situation made more complex by the actual situation of the Church. Bilateral relations between sending and receiving dioceses are not strong, and the Church leaders here has not participated in the international sharing of experience on cross border migration that has shaped the Universal Church's understanding of the issue. Also local circumstances make proper care of non-nationals difficult, for example the absence of sufficient worship spaces or pastors who can relate well to the diverse communities they try to address.

The pastoral care of the stranger is much more than providing an English Mass in existing Churches when the space is available. In other countries, subgroups of non-nationals, acting under the direction of the local bishop, have enriched the diversity of the local church while attending to their own pastoral needs. Now that China is an establishes leader in the world economy, the development of a coherent programme of diversified pastoral care under the direction of the local bishop in places where non-nationals are present in numbers is an increasingly important pastoral need.