The 10th International Symposium on Migration and Religion was held from May 26 to 28 on the campus of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP).
The meeting focused on the assessment and perspectives on migration in the Global South and North, demonstrating the richness of the analysis carried out in recent years and the importance the academic community has given to the phenomenon of migration.
Promoted by the Scalabrini International Migration Institute (SIMI) and the Mission of Peace – Center for Migration Studies (CEM), in collaboration with the Postgraduate Program in Religious Studies at PUC-SP, the Symposium brought together academics, researchers, and students.
Cardinal Fabio Baggio, CS, Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, opened the event with a review of migration from the Dicastery’s perspective.
Father Aldo Skoda, director of SIMI, emphasized the importance of abandoning the emergency-based view of migration and focusing on a comprehensive perspective of human mobility that considers migrants not just as numbers, but as individuals who are part of relational and social networks.
Father Skoda emphasized that the increasing speed of change in migration worldwide is not matched by an adequate capacity for structural and institutional adaptation. The challenges posed by human mobility, he noted, inevitably require a paradigm shift—economic, social, political, environmental, and even religious. Migration thus becomes not simply a problem to be solved or managed, but part of the solution and a path to determining the future of our societies.
Education therefore becomes fundamental to overcoming reductive visions and promoting values of inclusion and human dignity, helping transform the perception of migration from a problem to an opportunity.
The integral ecological approach offers tools to address migration as a path to building more just and inclusive societies.