The Second Generation in the Diaspora
The Second Generation in the Diaspora
Our pastoral work for the diaspora is not focused only on the first generation that emigrated from our country to the West.
The first generation carried the principles and values, the traditions and doctrines, the language, and the sense of belonging.
With God’s help, and with a little pastoral care, it can remain steadfast. Indeed, this generation is the one that sought to build the churches, and it is the one that continually asks that pastoral care be provided for it by the Mother Church. Because it knows the language of its homeland, it has the opportunity and the ability to read publications and books in the Arabic language. It also understands the church hymns, whether in Coptic or Arabic.
Therefore, the problem or the danger is not here. Nor is the difficulty in pastoral care here.
Rather, the danger lies in the second generation, or the third generation, in the diaspora.
I mean the children who were born there, and acquired the citizenship of the countries of the diaspora, their language, their traditions, and perhaps even their morals as well…
Likewise, those who were born in Egypt, but emigrated while they were children with their families. There is nothing of the old days in their memory, or nothing became firmly established in them…
These live in an environment different from ours, and they speak a language different from ours. As I said on one occasion:
The highest level they can reach regarding the language is the level of the illiterate.
For the illiterate in our country are those who speak Arabic fluently and understand all conversation in it, but do not know how to read or write it. But the children of the diaspora know neither how to read nor write Arabic, and at the same time they have never reached the level of the illiterate, nor will they ever reach it…
And since they have lost the language, they have therefore become strangers to all our books in Arabic…
Strangers to our heritage, our culture, and all our spiritual and doctrinal books… unless we translate all this religious and spiritual culture for them, and undertake a wide-ranging publishing movement in every branch of knowledge necessary for the salvation of their souls…
Likewise, in the matter of belonging…
Belonging to Egypt, and belonging to the Church. After they acquire a foreign citizenship, with all its rights and duties. Will the third generation, for example, or the fourth, remember that their ancestors were Egyptians and were Copts?!
Here our primary duty toward them becomes evident.
The process of extensive translation, spiritual and religious curricula, and making them aware of the glory and greatness of their country, so that they may take pride in belonging to it… Therefore, it is our duty to connect them with the country and the Church, to encourage visits to us, to visit them, to care for them, and to create a bond of love that is not easy to shake.
Only through this effort will our churches in the diaspora remain, and our people remain.
An effort in caring for the second and third generations and the generations that follow them, with wisdom and knowledge…
This article is the answer to a question that some ask: Why does the Pope travel? And why do the bishops travel…
We are preserving our children from being lost, so that their doctrine, their spirituality, and their sense of belonging may remain.
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