Become a neighbour to anyone you meet, Francis urges

The first US regional meeting of the World Meeting of Popular Movements brought together hundreds of immigration activists, community organisers, Catholic bishops, trade union leaders and interreligious leaders, focusing on the themes of “land, labour, and shelter.”

The meeting, held in Modesto, California, began with a message from Pope Francis. “Do not classify others in order to see who is a neighbour and who is not. You can become a neighbour to whomever you meet in need, and you will do so if you have compassion in your heart,” the Pope said in his letter. “You must become a Samaritan.”

The first World Meeting of the Movements was held in Rome in 2014. The following year, Bolivia hosted the meeting in Santa Cruz and Pope Francis addressed it. The event in Modesto was the first attempt to host a regional meeting, and attendees came from Canada and Latin America as well as the US. Cardinal Peter Turkson (below), Prefect of the new dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, delivered the Pope’s message and gave the opening keynote address. He noted the two dozen bishops present and said: “It’s not possible that the sheep have an odour that the pastor does not have. If [that happens] the pastor isn’t one with the sheep, and does not feel what the sheep feel.”

Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego brought down the house with a powerful speech that echoed Pope Francis’ repeated concerns about “an economy that kills”. McElroy told the meeting: “For Catholic social teaching, the surest pathway to economic justice is the provision of meaningful and sustainable work for all men and women capable of work … Work is thus profoundly sacred. It protects human dignity as it spiritually enriches that dignity. If we are in our work co-creators with God, don’t we think that deserves at least US$15 an hour?”

Bishop McElroy also noted the political landscape. “President Trump was the candidate of disruption. He was the disrupter,” he said. “Well now, we must all become disrupters. We must disrupt those who would seek to send troops into our streets to deport the undocumented, to rip mothers and fathers from their families. We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies, rather than brothers and  sisters … those who  train  us to see Muslim men and women and children as sources of fear rather than as children of God … those who seek to rob our medical care … from the poor.”