Below we publish the text of the message that the Holy Father Francis sent to the Gypsy People of Spain, on the occasion of the VI centenary of their arrival in the country (January 1425-2025):
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Message of the Holy Father
Dear cousins, uncles, and aunts,
Dear Gypsy People of Spain:
In 2025, we commemorate 600 years of your presence in Spain. I want to show you my affection, recognize your values, and encourage you to face the future with hope.
I know your history has been marked by misunderstanding, rejection, and marginalization. But, even in the hardest moments, you have discovered the closeness of God. Indeed, God travels through history with humanity and has become a nomad with the Gypsy people. The Child Manuel – as God is called with us – was also born in Bethlehem under the sign of persecution and itinerant.
It is also right to recognise the efforts made in recent decades by the Gypsy people, by the Church and by Spanish society as a whole, to embark on a new path towards an inclusion that respects your identity. This path has produced many fruits, but we must continue to work, because there are still prejudices to overcome and painful situations to face: families in need who do not know how to help their children with problems, young people who have difficulty studying, young people who cannot find decent jobs, women who suffer discrimination in their families and in society.
I would like that unforgettable message of Saint Paul VI, pronounced in Pomezia in 1965 before thousands of Gypsies from all over the world, to resonate in your hearts: “You are at the heart of the Church”. You are beloved daughters and sons of God. They are beloved children of Santa Maria, the Majarí Cali, to whom they turn for shelter and protection.
They are children of the Church, of this Church in which many people, gypsies and non-gypsies, have committed themselves with responsibility and affection for the integral development of the gypsy people; of this Church that wishes to continue opening its doors wide open, so that we can all feel at home there; a Church in which you can grow in your Christian faith without renouncing the best values of your culture. Thank you to all the people who have worked and continue to work decisively so that this desire becomes a reality that is becoming more evident every day. God does not let himself be outdone in generosity, and will make the affection and time that you dedicate to Pastoral care with gypsies bear fruit.
The Church has rediscovered, in the celebration of the recent Synod, the importance of walking together. Walk together with your bishops, with those responsible for the delegations and secretariats of gypsy pastoral care, in your parishes and in the brotherhoods and associations in which you participate. Let us walk together from the various diocesan realities, with the support of the Pastoral Department of the Spanish Episcopal Conference.
Let us walk together, because in the Church the power of the Gospel will purify and enhance its values and culture. You have much to contribute to the Church and to society: appreciation for the elderly and the sense of family, which becomes stronger in times of difficulty; care for creation, represented in your flag by the blue of the sky and the green of the earth; our condition as pilgrims towards the homeland of heaven, symbolized in the wheel of the carts in which your ancestors traveled; the ability to maintain joy and celebrate even when there are clouds on the horizon; the meaning of work – so often misunderstood – as a means to live and not so much to accumulate. Many of the values that identify you as a people are not only evangelical, but also prophetic and countercultural at this time.
For this reason, I invite you to walk together to evangelize, to spread the joy of living the Christian faith, hope and love, especially to young people who have difficulty finding God inside and outside the Catholic Church. Let us walk together to form communities of “missionary disciples who take the lead, who get involved, who accompany, who bear fruit and celebrate” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 24). With your words, commitment and fraternity, be pilgrims of hope for so many people who have lost the joy of living. Show from your experience the closeness of God, who “wants to come in the small things of our lives, wants to inhabit everyday realities, the simple gestures we carry out at home, in the family, at school, at work; God wants to do, in our ordinary life, extraordinary things” (Homily at the Holy Mass of Christmas Eve, 2021).
Let us walk together and keep the doors of our communities open to cousins who no longer celebrate the faith in the Catholic Church, always offering them the friendship and dialogue that is proper to those of us who are called to live in fraternity, beyond our differences.
Let us look forward with hope, following in the footsteps of Blessed Emilia Fernández Rodríguez, the basket-maker, and Ceferino Giménez Malla, Uncle Pelé. Although they did not intend to, they were and continue to be teachers of faith and life for gypsies and non-gypsies, like so many humble people who open their smallness with confidence to the greatness of God. Recounting the mysteries of the Rosary, both Blesseds remind us of the importance of prayer, of the encounter with God, a source of joy, fraternity, hope and charity. Both risked and lost their lives for the love of God and seeking the good of other people: Uncle Pelé for defending a priest unjustly detained, the basket-maker for protecting her catechists. Both were humble and courageous missionaries: Ceferino was a catechist for a group of children, whom he gathered on the outskirts of the city of Barbastro, and Emilia transmitted her faith even to her fellow prisoners in Almería. Ceferino, finally, stands out as a model of fraternity because, in a society as polarized as that of his time, he knew how to show harmony and solidarity among his people, also mediating in the conflicts that have sometimes marred relations between non-Gypsies and Gypsies.
At the end of this message, I make my own some words from your hymn: Opre Roma isi vaxt akana (Up, Gypsies! Now is the time). It is time to continue making progress, to offer the best of yourselves, to transmit the tenderness of God, which we celebrate and welcome at Christmas. It is time to proclaim, with the strength of the Lord Jesus, “the personal love of God who became man, gave himself for us and is alive offering his salvation and his friendship” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 128).
Dear Gypsy People of Spain, pray for me, as I pray for you, may Undebel bless you, especially the sick uncles and aunts. Devlesa romá (God be with the Gypsies).
Rome, St. John Lateran, 9 December 2024
FRANCIS
[Original text: Spanish]
