Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope

During his Ash Wednesday message earlier this week, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said he would instruct his priests to defy a proposed federal requirement that churches check the legal status of parishioners before helping them. The U.S. House of Representatives included the requirement in an immigration bill that the Senate Judiciary Committee is to begin debating this week. The legislation also would penalize social organizations that refuse to meet its requirements.  Christianity Today has an article on a related issue today.

The L.A. Times reports on the controversy stirred by this message:

Although some parishes engaged in civil disobedience during the sanctuary movement to harbor Salvadoran refugees during the 1980s, Mahony's call to all priests to defy the law would mark a first for the cardinal.

"The whole concept of punishing people who serve immigrants is un-American," Mahony said. "If you take this to its logical, ludicrous extreme, every single person who comes up to receive Holy Communion, you have to ask them to show papers. It becomes absurd and the church is not about to get into that. The church is here to serve people…. We're not about to become immigration agents. It just throws more gasoline on the discussion and inflames people."

He said that both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures were consistent and clear about the moral imperative to care for strangers and aliens. The Jewish people were aliens in Egypt, he said, and Jesus was a refugee who was escaping from King Herod. God clearly instructed Moses to care for aliens, orphans and widows in his midst, Mahony said.

"This is part of our heritage of God's care and concern for all peoples," Mahony said. "At no point … is God asking us to build walls on borders."

The Catholic Bishops have a wonderful campaign called Justice for Immigrants, which is working to address this growing wedge issue.

Comments

[Bill Dahl]

Fantastic POST!!! Thank you. For Immigration reform poems and articles from a Christian perspective, please refer to my website at www.BillDahl.net and click either "Articles" or "Poems."

This is not some sleight of hand to draw attwention to my site. It is an authentic attempt to draw more people into the dialogue your post demands.

Thanks

Bill