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John Baptist Scalabrini, too, saw, the dramatic events of his time - the period between the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries marked by radical transformations. At that time, thousands upon thousands of Italians and other Europeans were leaving their country because of poverty and had to face the uncertainties and sufferings of migration. John Baptist Scalabrini, confronted by so much pain, could have simply stopped at a feeling of compassion, instead he asked himself the question: "What should be done?" and he shouldered the responsibility for the migrants that he saw and intervened on their behalf at different levels.
John Baptist Scalabrini combined his concrete action with a prophetic vision which he was able to bring to maturity, and which he left as a legacy to the Church. This legacy is ours today. Scalabrini sensed that within the travesty of migration, with all its problems and difficulties, a hidden positive aspect is at work, the seed of the future.
This vision is not just the result of historical and sociological considerations. Thanks most of all to his faith in the death and resurrection of Christ, John Baptist Scalabrini sees God's plan in the unfolding of human history and is convinced that it is through the suffering and the uprooting of the migrants, through the encounter and even the clashes between cultures and mentalities, that a new world is being prepared, where peoples and persons discover their common human family, where no one is subject to the law of uniformity but, in the image of the Triune God, communion in diversity is possible.
Today, the world of human mobility has perhaps become even more complex and is affecting everyone, migrants and indigenous peoples alike. Migration is an important component of the growing interdependence between nations. It is also due to migration, if there is growing awareness that we "are travelling in the same boat", that is to say in the one and same world.
Our destiny is ever more bound to everyone else's destiny.
John Baptist Scalabrini's intuitions are, therefore, more relevant than ever and they are motivating the Scalabrinian Family to work for a constructive co-existence within the diversities of our society, to achieve an authentic communion within the Church, and to promote justice and peace in the world. 

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