Speaking to the US bishops gathered for the opening Mass of their plenary assembly last Sunday, the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin reminded the bishops of the Church’s historic role in defending immigrants. However after a long debate on Monday, the bishops decided against issuing a special message on immigration, although they did urge for the release of a presidential statement on the matter from Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, who serves as president of the conference.
The assembly that took place on Monday and Tuesday marked the centenary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Delivering his homily on Sunday at the Basilica of the National Shrine in Baltimore, Cardinal Parolin invoked this past “as the Church in your country seeks to provide healing, comfort, and hope to new waves of migrants and refugees.” The USCCB began as America’s bishops cared for those who were “forced from their homes and came to the new world in search of security and a new life,” he said.
Following an afternoon of vigorous discussion on how best to respond to President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration Cardinal DiNardo indicated that it could take several days for a statement to be drafted and that he would like to work on it with Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, head of the special working group on immigration, and Bishop Joe Vasqeuz of Austin, Texas, head of the Committee on Migration.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Blase Cupich, at the University of Chicago last week in a public conversation with journalist E.J. Dionne, took aim at critics of Pope Francis. Dionne asked if Francis is scandalising faithful Catholics. Cupich said: “I don’t think people are scandalised by the Pope. I think they’re being told to be scandalised.”
He also used the occasion to reiterate his call for a “consistent ethic of solidarity” which is challenged by libertarian ideas about the autonomous individual. “We have to speak about the impact that libertarianism has on dividing us,” he said. “Because at its essence is not human solidarity, but how I achieve my individual goals. That’s where the debate has to happen.”
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