Travellers are a distinct cultural and ethnic group in Ireland constituting less than 1% of the total population. There are currently about 5,000 Travelling families totalling some 30,00 individuals of whom more than 50% are under 15 years.
‘Our Christian Community welcomes you with great joy’ are the first words spoken on behalf of the church – the people of God – to any child being baptised. However these words have a hollow and empty ring to them when a Traveller child is brought to this ‘sacrament of belonging’. For this child and for their brothers and sisters, father, mother and all their family, welcome is not what is offered. Rather a life as objects of fear and hostility and the experience of an all encompassing exclusion is given instead.
Discrimination is corrosive, being told that you are not equal nor deserving of respect and that you are somehow ‘less’ than others, is felt very deeply and has a profound impact on the life of the Traveller community.
This reality mocks our religious practice and flies in the face of God, whose vision, as revealed through Jesus, was that peace and justice, love and compassion, holiness and fullness of life for all might be realised. Each of us needs to take account and ask ourselves about our place and responsibility in the continued exclusion of Travellers in Ireland today. What can I/we do now?
For more information visit the site of the Irish Province of the CM
http://www.vincentians.ie/Travsfocus.htm
Tags: Homelessness
