Sunday 27 January 2013

Day 3...


We started today with the department of migration, this included all people's with no fixed address or those not living at it for an extended period, including travellers, refugees, immigrants and overseas students. I think they said there was 8 million overseas students worldwide, Australia is becoming a key centre for this. It was interesting and engaging, there was a variety of speakers and lots of questions.
The under secretary of the council justice and peace spoke to us after the break. The talk was hard work because of her accent but the content was good. There were very few women in high positions in Vatican jobs, yet she could only ever be the undersecretary, not the secretary for a council.

We visited the Catacombs in the afternoonand then went  off to the Focalare movement for a talk and dinner. Movements are different to religious orders in that you don't have to live in community to be part of it. Some of the members we met were young people, some married and some who did live in community. The idea is that they give back to the society they live in, they work, they love and they help in whatever way they feel called. They are asked to give most of their income to the movement and live off only what they need depending on their job and circumstances. There are Focalare movements all over the world, it would be interesting to meet the community in the UK.

We were out for 15 hours on this day, and its starting to take its toll.


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